Key Takeaways
Success is a feeling, not an accomplishment - focus on fulfillment through internally derived purpose rather than external achievements to avoid the accomplishment addiction trap
Lead to your team's functional level, not how you want to be led - high performers need empowerment while low performers need more control and structure
Implement 'avoid, mitigate, backup' planning for every potential problem before it occurs rather than constantly reacting to crises
Create psychological safety where team members can say 'no' if they explain why it's a no and how to make it a yes - this makes their 'yes' commitments meaningful
Use commander's intent by communicating the 'why' behind objectives rather than dictating the 'what' or 'how' - this allows teams to adapt strategies in dynamic environments
Quotable Moments
โโIf you say you're gonna do something, do it. And if someone says they're gonna do something, they're gonna do it.โ
โโSuccess is not an accomplishment. Success is a feeling that a human has.โ
โโDo not lead the way you want to be led. Lead to the functional level of your team.โ
โโWe only got missions that everyone else said was impossible. Like, nope. We can't do it. Nope. We can't do it. Okay. That's the ones we get.โ
About the Guest
Larry Yatch
SEAL Team Leaders
Larry Yash is a former Navy SEAL officer who transitioned into business leadership consulting after being injured and unable to continue his military career. He specializes in helping real estate investors and entrepreneurs build high-functioning teams and business structures by applying leadership principles and operational excellence learned from over 200 Navy SEAL missions. His company focuses on bringing professionalism, team development, and strategic planning to organizations that excel at their core business but struggle with management and leadership.
Full Transcript
20727 words
Full Transcript
20727 words
Steve Trang: You started your wholesale business and you're finding success. You want to start scaling. Start creating your legacy. You're looking for a blueprint. Our three day event, June 16 to June 18, teaches the blueprint for what you'll need to grow your wholesaling business.
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Thank you for checking out today's episode, and I hope you enjoy the show. Shout out to Steve Trane. Jump on the Steve Trane. We real estate disruptors. Hey, everybody.
Thank you for joining us for today's episode of real estate disruptors. Today, we have someone that I consider to be a mentor, Larry Yash with SEAL team leaders, and he flew in from Park City, Utah to talk about lessons he's learned from 200 successful Navy Seal missions and how they apply to business. If this is your first time tuning in, I'm Steve Trane, sales trainer, and every month, we help hundreds of people buy more houses at deeper margins. If you want more information about that, DM me the word sales on Instagram, and I am on a mission to create a 100 millionaires. The information on this podcast alone is enough to help you become a millionaire in the next five to seven years.
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Share this episode right now. That way, we can all grow together. And it's a live show, so please ask your questions for Larry to answer. You ready?
Larry Yash: I am ready.
Steve: Alright. So, normally, I ask you what got him into real estate, but, we didn't really connect necessarily through real estate. We got, connected through Collective Genius.
Larry: Yep.
Steve: Right? So I guess, starting off, what would you consider your role or your profession, or what do you consider yourself?
Larry: Definitely not real estate. Yeah. My one real estate experience was very, very bad. Buying an overpriced house in San Diego in 2006, I think. 2007.
It was a disaster scene. So, yeah, I still sting from that one a little bit. Yeah. My role, especially in the real estate space is if you are good at real estate investment, if you're good at development, you probably are crap at building a team and managing a a functioning business. That's what we do.
So our job is to bring professionalism and structure to an organization through leadership, team development, business structure planning, kind of all the core concepts that are needed to have a high functioning business.
Steve: Got it. Alright. So how did you get into that?
Larry: It is a it is a roundabout story in that
Steve: Inky, Bob.
Larry: Sorry. Inky, Bob. It's a roundabout story. So, originally, my background is as a Navy SEAL. So I I was an officer in the SEAL teams for a bunch of years, and I got injured.
And after a botched surgery, knew I wasn't gonna be able to be a SEAL anymore, which then led me to what's next. All I'd ever wanna do is be a seal.
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: Be in the military. And entrepreneurship wasn't a big driving thing for me. It was more a logical means to the future I wanted to create than a big driving passion. And, my specific form of leadership was strongly based in education of of developing the people around me to make good choices as opposed to direct leadership. So I got into building training companies, and it was a series of them before I ever got to leadership development.
Steve: So one thing I remember in our one of our conversations was that, you went from being a Navy SEAL to starting a company. Right. And Straight out,
Larry: not a good plan.
Steve: And there were some surprises from the difference between levels of commitment between a SEAL and civilian population. What were those differences? Yeah.
Larry: It's, it's funny and painful. At the same time, One of the best parts about being a SEAL was the team. Like, we literally call it the teams. And the team is not only the team, but the the men I got to serve with, the biggest thing I miss. And one of the best parts about it, what gave me the confidence to go into horrible environments and impossible missions with impossible odds was that every seal that worked for me, if they said they were gonna do something, they did it.
Mhmm. Which was just for me, that was, like, breathing. Like, if you say you're gonna do something, do it. And if someone says they're gonna do something, they're gonna do it. And with a seal
Steve: With a 100% confidence.
Larry: A 100% confidence. And they would I'd say, 80% of the time, they would do it at a 100% of the standard of performance. 10% of the time, they would do it at, like, a 120%. Like, they would always go a little over. And then 10% of the time, they do it at, like, 200% where you ask a guy to do an inventory, and he built software to automate inventories.
Like, that that but that happened regularly. So I get to the civilian world. I hire people. They say they're gonna do something, and they didn't Yeah. On a regular basis.
Like, it was It
Steve: wasn't a 100% done.
Larry: No. If someone did something to 80% standard, 50% of the time, they were a high performer,
Steve: and that's pathetic. So, we were talking earlier. You know? I used to work at Intel.
Larry: Yeah.
Steve: Right? And, like, regularly, like, my boss will come by. Like, you're doing a great job. You're doing a great job. And every time we did that, I was like, I'm literally doing what they pay me to do.
Just that. And they're like, why? Like, we can't believe, like, how talented you are. I was like, no. Like so I'll share my this is my friends, and they laugh because they had the same thing too.
Like, why do they keep telling us we're doing a great job when we're just doing
Larry: because most people do not. Yeah. That was a big thing.
Steve: Yeah. Anything else? That was a major takeaway from, the surprise?
Larry: Two others. So I I always share these three things, and these three things were, like, breathing, eating, and drinking water as a seal. Like, it just things you did to survive. One was doing what you said you were gonna do, the holding responsibility. The second one was receiving feedback.
Like, as a SEAL as an officer of the SEALs, they always do what they said they were gonna do, and we would give each other direct feedback all the time. And they beat any sort of ego out of you in SEAL training. Mhmm. Because if your ego if I know something, I'm putting the if I if I go into something knowing, then I'm putting the whole team at risk. If I'm not willing to take feedback immediately and implement it exactly right on the next mission, I'm putting everyone at risk.
So giving and receiving feedback and most importantly implementing it was, again, just like eating. Like, that's what you do. Every time you do something, someone's gonna tell you how you how you could do it better, and you implemented it. The third thing was planning. It amazes me that organizations, at best, do strategic planning once a year.
Mhmm.
Steve: And
Larry: then after that, it's like, well, we just every problem that comes up, we kinda figure it out on the way. If we have inner like, rocks or intermediate things in the the year, like, it's up to someone to figure out what to do. We planned to do everything. Like, I would share, like, we finished training. You've got 16 of the best the country has to offer.
We're gonna all go get burritos after the training event. We put a plan together, which you'd laugh. Like, wait. You're taking the highest performing people in the world, and, like, you'd actually plan as how you're just gonna go to the the local burrito shop, GoodRivers. Yes.
I mean, that we planned for everything. And not only did we plan, we planned to fail because we know the one mission that wasn't gonna happen was the one that we planned for.
Steve: Right.
Larry: And that just isn't done in the civilian world. So those three things, holding responsibility, giving, receiving feedback, and planning were the biggest eye opening of people just don't do that at all in the civilian world.
Steve: So let's go back a little bit because we, you know, we talked about, you know, the lessons you learn from being a Navy SEAL. Right? And there's other people out there that are notable people follow. Right? There's Jocko Willink.
There's, David Goggins. Right? So for you, like, let's talk about what what, qualifications does someone have to go through to be a Navy SEAL? Because you've kinda shared also, like, you know, when you guys go in, there's a very specific reason why you have to go in. Yeah.
Right? So let's talk about first, like, what it takes to become Navy Seal and then what missions kind of missions you guys get to get to go to. So
Larry: becoming a Navy Seal is not easier. It actually got harder after nine eleven. Because pre nine eleven, like, I remember I went through training in 1998. Even in '98, '99, if someone asked what you were, it's like, I'm a seal. They didn't know what you're talking about.
I mean, I would say seven out of 10 people really didn't know what a Navy Seal was. And that that awareness that changed in 09/11 then meant a lot more people wanted to go, for me, coming from the Naval Academy. So I didn't go in the enlist route. I didn't go straight into the seals. I went to the naval academy first, which in and of itself is very difficult going to that school.
And then from there, I had to compete with some of the best the country has to offer to get a spot just to try to go to seal training. So it went from 12,000 applicants for my freshman class to 1,200. Then from those 1,200, it's about 250 that wanted to be a SEAL freshman year. By the time we got to senior year, only 53 were qualified. Those 53 had to compete for 15 spots.
So just to get one of those 15 spots is really, really hard. Yeah. And then you show up to training. We had a 135 guys show up, and 11 graduated six months later. I mean,
Steve: it's crazy. And you hear these, like, nightmare stories. Right? And I don't know how accurate they are, you know, like, being thrown in the water in a deep cold or, they're that was it.
Larry: The worst nightmare story you heard was, like, probably one of the easier days. Like, it is so much worse than you know. And they they have those documentaries where they'll show the whole training class. Yeah. Like, the longest documentary is ten hours long.
That's one day, and you have six months of those days, like, that you just get a fraction of what they put you through.
Steve: And so one thing that's fascinating is you don't go on the easy missions. No. So what what kind of missions does a Navy SEAL go to?
Larry: The the way I describe it is in every business, there's competition. Right? Every every company, there's competition. In the competition that we're doing, say, in the real estate space, you might lose a deal. Right?
My competition tried to kill me. Right? Like, that's the level of competition that we're talking about. If they win, I die. If I win, they're either taken out or they're dead.
Right? They're taken out of of the battle space. So that's the first thing. The second thing is they didn't send us anywhere nice. Like, they're not sending you to nice places.
They're sending you to You're not you were stationed
Steve: in Hawaii.
Larry: I got to visit for training, and then they'd send me to shithole. Some, like, horrible place that I had to go go live and operate in.
Steve: Yeah.
Larry: When I was fortunate that every time I deployed, it was to a real world mission, real world action. And so and that's rare. SEALs cover the whole world twenty four seven, three sixty five. So the average SEAL is gonna deploy and never go to war. Just the timing that I had and the team I was on and the locations I've been in, I got to to really do my job.
And where we do our job is not nice. Right? That's where bad people are trying to do bad things. And on top of that, we're very expensive. A seal costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to get through just the six months of of BUDS, and that's the the start of a two and a half year cycle.
So you'll do two years of training before you ever get to a team. You get to a team, you do eighteen months more of training before you go and do your job, go to a deployment. So there's hundreds of thousand dollars up to million dollars for a seal just to go do their job. After a couple of those deployment, seals are worth couple million dollars each. So a 16 man platoon's worth $3,040,000,000 dollars.
They're not gonna risk that if there's a cheaper unit that can do it. So we only got missions that everyone else said was impossible. Like, nope. We can't do it. Nope.
We can't do it. Okay. That's the ones we get.
Steve: It's crazy to hear, like, it's almost run like a business. Right?
Larry: A very the the navy is a very inefficient and effective business because it's huge. But, yeah, it's a business.
Steve: Right. But, like, we're making business decisions. Right? We're not gonna spend 39 risk 39 here if we can just get it down for a 100,000,000.
Larry: Risk 30,000 for this unit, and they can accomplish a mission, then they get the the mission, not us. And it's the same thing. I got injured. I didn't choose to stop being a SEAL. I got hurt.
And as soon as I was a no longer a value producing asset, like, they were done with me.
Steve: Well, different than the connection, module in your your book. Completely.
Larry: Hey. There was I mean, there are guys care about me, but because I didn't produce value anymore, it was literally I was Yeah. Dead to the organization.
Steve: So one part that also impressed me when we were talking about your story was, one of the missions you had to accomplish in, Iraq as far as securing the oil fields. Yep. Because I remember, like, watching on the news. Like, this was not like a, hey. Hey.
Let's go secure the oil fields. It was, like, an event.
Larry: Oh, it's huge. Yeah.
Steve: So can you elaborate on that?
Larry: Largest special operations mission in US history to date. So there's never been one larger than this one. Our team, CL team three, was responsible for securing all of Iraq's oil infrastructure, their distribution, which was five different targets, five large targets. One of those targets was the world's largest gas and oil platform, which was my platoon's specific mission was to secure that. And Saddam had promised to blow it all up if we there's any hostilities.
And so I put it into layman's terms. It was my job to go have a gunfight on the world's largest gas station that's probably rigged with explosives.
Steve: Looks like a Hollywood movie. Yeah. It
Larry: was. And, that before the war could start, that had to accomplish. So and the war actually started, I think, twenty some days early, twenty one days early based on the fact that there the all the workers on the one working platform were pulled off and a ship with a tugboat with a bunch of big boxes were loaded on, and so we went two days later.
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: Even though we weren't planning to go for over twenty days, the war is gonna start to almost two and a half weeks after it it actually started. And so for that, it's amazing to think, like, for that moment, my target, my platoon was the center of all attention in at the highest levels in the the US government and the US military because nothing else could happen before that's all got taken care of.
Steve: Kinda like like, going to the moon. Right? Like, everyone's eyes are on this
Larry: On this one mission. It's kinda cool to think like, I would have never thought when I was a little skinny dork in high school wanting to be an AV seal that it's at one point, I'm gonna be on what was the most important mission in the world at that point in time.
Steve: What was your responsibility on that mission?
Larry: I was responsible for tactical leadership. So I wasn't the most senior person in my platoon. I was one step down. He was as you know from what we've talked about with leadership management, his job was to manage. My job was to lead.
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: So within that piece, I did all of the tactical planning for that and then had to get the platoon ready to execute on that tactical plan, and then I was directly involved in the execution of that tactical plan on target Yeah. And then interrogation. So I once we took, control of the platform, it was my responsibility to get as much information from the prisoners we took as soon as possible because we are now on a target that we are assuming, has the potential to be rigged with explosives. And when I talk about this is a large platform, largest in the world, it was, 12 football fields long. Hell.
It's 1,200 meters long, almost a mile long. It could fuel four supertankers, 4,000 foot tankers at one time, three football fields wide. It had two twelve mile, 12 foot diameter pipelines feeding it. I mean, the thing's massive. Yeah.
And so that was our job. 20 of us got to take that over.
Steve: 20. Seems like a sounds like it was potentially understaffed. But Yes.
Larry: It was very severe. The original mission call for, 60 or 70 SEALs, but they kept expanding it. So the entire I think it was, like, three or four platoons from SEAL team three were gonna secure that one platform.
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: And then they gave us another platform. Then they gave us two pump houses. Then they gave us the manifold metering station. So Yeah. Yeah.
It went from 60 seals down to I think we had 20 or 24 total guys assaulting that platform.
Steve: So, obviously, you've been coaching my team and myself for almost five months now.
Larry: Yeah. Right?
Steve: And then, you know, just finished reading your book very recently. And one of the concepts that has really, you know, stuck with me is desired end states. Right? Yep. Commander's intent.
So we're gonna talk about it later on, but can you just share real quick how commander's intent or desired end state apply in that situation so we can later talk about how it
Larry: applies in real estate? The that was a unique that wasn't one of our normal missions. Right? This this was a big mission, a really big mission. This mission so The US has battle plans.
Like, if all of a sudden North Korea was gonna invade South Korea, there would be there's already a, you know, a book this thick with the plans for what we're gonna do. This particular mission, securing the oil platforms ever since the first Iraq war when Saddam had destroyed all the oil in Kuwait. Like, we knew he wasn't full of crap when he was talking about what he'd do. We had there's plans for this. Right?
So those plans are very specific. They fit into the overall battle plans. So that one is that was a very static mission for us. Meaning, there's an oral platform. Go take it.
Most of our missions are not static. It's a very dynamic environment that we work in. It's ever changing, highly dynamic and lots of risk. With that type of environment, our commanders can't tell us go, like, go take that house.
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: Like they said with this, like, go take the platform. Make sure it doesn't get damaged. From there, most of the time, if they were to tell us that, the world would change so much even just on the way to the target that we'd be in trouble. So most of the time, we are tasked with what they refer as commander's intent, where he would tell us what it would look like the battle space would look like after we were done as opposed to what we were doing. And that commander's intent gave us the flexibility to adjust strategies and tactics in that ever changing environment while we're executing the mission.
So it's the best way I liken to it is it's the reason why we're going out, not what we're gonna do or how we're gonna do it.
Steve: Yeah. So the objective is to why this objective is important versus what the exact outcome looks like.
Larry: It's literally most of the time, especially, like, in business, you're telling people what to do. And a lot of times, people are telling people how to do it, right, which is two layers, two deep.
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: Our our commanding officer would tell us why we're doing something. It was our job to tell him what we were gonna do to produce that fulfill on his why. Yeah. And then he would give us an okay of did we get it right. So we he would never tell us strategy.
It was our job to identify strategy.
Steve: Yeah. But, it's always like, here's why it's important.
Larry: Yep. Why it's important. That's it. Here's the why. We showed up with the what.
And then as a as an officer, my job was the what we were gonna do. My guys, my leaders, my my enlisted guys, they told us how we're gonna get done. And my job was to follow them, not actually lead them. One of the
Steve: things that and I know we're kind of we're kinda going a little bit differently than how I I would normally do this, but, you know, like I said, it's been instrumental for my business. The things that, it's always felt like top down management. Right? Like, hey, Larry. How many dials did you make today?
How many Yep. Contracts did you have? Right? And it just feels like I'm pulling this out of you. Right?
Larry: And it
Steve: feels and it feels like micromanaging.
Larry: Mhmm.
Steve: Right? And the things that we've learned very recently with you guys is that it's not me requesting this of you. It's you're reporting it to me. My job to overreport. Right.
Your job to over report. And then with when I have the intel, now I can make decisions on the business because I have all the intel on the front lines. It's a completely different way of looking at business. The
Larry: it's the it's the concept again, one of if I was to say what was like, I talked about responsibility and feedback and planning, but the concept of leadership versus management was ultimately one of the biggest paradigm shifts that I had. When I go as a junior officer so I come straight out of training. I'm out of training. I go get assigned to a team. I get assigned to a platoon.
I walk into that platoon space. I would be the second at maybe the third highest ranked person in the hole on that platoon, which means I'm very high at the top out of sixteen, seventeen guys, yet I know the least. Right? So I show up absolutely brand new, but they have to call me sir, and I can tell them to do anything, and they have to do it as long as it's a legal order.
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: If I go into that environment pretending like I can lead them to success, I'm gonna fail. It's gonna be dangerous. My job is to create a space for them to lead me to success because they have the knowledge, the experience. They have the confidence of of previous action to get stuff done. Yeah.
And so there's this real change that going into an organization and pretending like you know how to lead people to success is usually very wrong and ultimately very limiting, whereas my job was to create the space for for my guys to lead each other and me to success. That is when my job is to create leaders around me, I'm infinite. When my job is to lead others, I'm very finite.
Steve: Right. And these conversations I had with Jaden. Right? He's my, Yep. Now he's my CAO.
Right? Coordination of action officer. Yep. And, like, we had conversations, like, you know, who reports to who is? I was like, look.
Like, right now, you're there to support them so they can be successful. Yep. That's your responsibility. Right? You're not leading.
You're not directing. Right? You're just giving them the space Creating
Larry: the space.
Steve: To be successful.
Larry: Right? Create, enable, support leaders. That's it.
Steve: And then the other thing too And,
Larry: ultimately, what's crazy is you as the CEO, right, as the most senior person will often report to him.
Steve: Feels that way. Yeah.
Larry: You should. Right? Like, because at a certain point, he's gonna need to direct your action Yes. To get stuff done. And, therefore, he's leading you even though you're the most senior person.
Right. That's how a SEAL team operates.
Steve: Yeah. So it's interesting as we kinda have this evolution. Yep. Another thing too is because I just, you know, finished your book, like I said, how leadership actually works. You know, the other concept that was, you know, kinda, paradigm shift Yep.
Is leader follower. Yeah. Right? So, like, for me, I'm a big Darren Hardy, fanboy. Right?
I've learned so much from him, and a lot of my business success has been attributed to him. And, the one thing I took from him not the one thing, but one of the major things I took from him was, like, I need to create a culture where I lead leaders. Yeah. Right? So I'm not managing people.
Like, I'm empowering everyone to lead, but it stopped with upper management. Mhmm. Alright? Like, I'm the owner, and I have all these managers, and I'm empowering them to be leaders, but it stopped there. Yep.
It didn't go all the way down to their front lines. Yeah. And here in reading the book, you're talking about, like, everyone on the front lines is also, empowered to be a leader in this right circumstances.
Larry: Can you elaborate on that? Totally. So I'll I'll cover two examples, and I'll use seal examples because they're exciting. A lot better than business. Yeah.
So we there's a part of our training that we call, IEDs, immediate action drills. So immediate action drills are oftentimes, we have to patrol to get to where we're gonna do work. And you could do that by foot or vehicle. It doesn't make a difference. Say we're on foot, patrolling to where we need to work, and a bad guy starts shooting at us.
We are now in action, and we need to take immediate action to get out of that space. Normally, we're undergunned. Right? We're a small unit. We're usually running around with fifteen, sixteen people, sometimes eight, sometimes four, sometimes two.
Right? We can be very small units, and you can run up against a 100 or a 150. So our job is to as soon as they contact us, our job is to get away. Like, mostly, we run away.
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: But we need to run away with them thinking that they just touched a much bigger unit. Right? So our job is to have them think like, oh, crap. Like, that's 200 people. Yeah.
And the way we do that is through coordination of action. You can watch videos on YouTube of units getting in contact, and it it when they do, you might have one or two people shooting. If if you contact a SEAL platoon, you'll have all 16 shooting within seconds. Oh, really? Yeah.
And so that seems like all of a sudden, you touch this, and it it's like all hell breaks loose. And on top of that, we as a we as a unit, m 60 machine gun. So it's a a medium size belt fed machine gun in the army or marines. That will be run by up to four people. SEALs do it by one guy.
One guy runs that weapon by themselves, and we have four of them in 16. That's the same as, like, a 150 army men. Yeah. So you touch that, all of a sudden you got four sixties plus a bunch of, well, grenades and rockets. It's like, oh, crap.
And on top of that, we move while we're doing it. So we're shooting, moving, and communicating at exactly the same time. So all hell breaks loose, then all of a sudden, all hell breaks loose over here, and all hell breaks loose over there, and it keeps moving. That that takes a lot of practice. And what we're doing with that is we will immediately go into action.
In that action, we're constantly looking for an outlet, what we call an outlet. Like, how do I get out of the bad area? Mhmm. That outbid can be found by anyone. Right?
As we're moving, the most junior guy can see that there's a depression in Atlanta, which is where we need to go, and he can take command of the entire platoon with no rank, no positional authority, and everyone will immediately switch into following him because he's now making the most effective choices and decisions at that time. So that to me illustrates a concept of lead follow. Mhmm. He'll follow until it's time to him for him to lead. As soon as he needs to lead, everyone else follows.
There's no one's feeling gets hurt. No one's asked. Like, no. You're you're the new guy. Shut up.
Right. You don't know what you're talking about. No one's feelings get hurt. It's just and and he knows what to do. It's immediate.
And the other thing is I could talk about planning being important. In a platoon, planning's super important. Who do you think's responsible for directing planning?
Steve: I mean, I guess, in most cases, it's the visionary.
Larry: Right. It'd be the senior people, right, with the most experience. We the most junior person's responsible for the plan Yeah. Which is nuts because they don't know anything. And there's a difference between being responsible for something and having the responsibility and holding it.
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: So the most junior person will have the responsibility getting the plan done, but they'll be responsible for managing all of the senior people that have all the experience to do the planning. So we're literally making the most junior person lead the most senior people in the task that they have the least experience in Mhmm. To prove the point that everyone is a leader at every point in time.
Steve: Got it. That's definitely a much more sexy example. Right?
Larry: Yeah. Thank you. We could've talked about what we're doing on our call two weeks ago. It'd have been a lot more boring.
Steve: So because for me, like, when I read that passage in the book, I was like, oh, this is actually a lot like what Sam Walton did. Mhmm. Right? I mean, Sam Walton has the most well, no longer the most, but was until until very recently the most successful company in
Larry: the world. Right.
Steve: Walmart. Right? And how did you create Walmart is he literally just flew city to city, met with their front lines, gathered intel from the front lines, and made business decisions based off what the front lines are saying.
Larry: Yep. So he's following He's following. The leaders that have no positional authority.
Steve: Right. So there's a lesson there, but no one really held on to it.
Larry: Yep.
Steve: And then read it again here. It's like, alright. We should probably be doing that.
Larry: The concept that and the best way to define this if you're trying to, like, orchest or understand in your head is the primary role. So you have three positions on any team, lead, manage, follow. If at any point in time, even on a two person team, if if you're not holding lead, manage, and follow, you it doesn't work. Right? So even on a two person team, all three have to be held.
The primary roles of each, once you understand those, it makes sense. So as a follower, you're following when you're taking action. Like, if you are actively doing something to move us towards a desired end state, you're following. If you're directly evoking action, and the keyword there is dir directly and evoking. So if I'm directly evoking effective action in someone else, I'm leading.
If I'm creating the space for an individual to lead or follow, I'm managing. So my job as a manager is to create, enable, and support leadership at every level. If I'm taking action, I could have the title of CEO. But if I'm actually doing something, I'm not managing. I'm not leading.
Yeah. And that concept of, like, okay. Leading and following. When I'm taking action, I'm following. When I'm evoking action, I'm leading.
At that point, we notice, oh, all of us evoke action in other people every day. Therefore, every day, we do some leadership.
Steve: Mhmm. So I read Traction a few years ago. Right? I think a lot of people that are listening to podcasts have read Traction or implement some sort of Traction, some form some form of it. And there's a difference there in their accountability chart.
There's LMA, lead, manage, accountability. Mhmm. You say lead, manage, and follow. Right. Can you help me bridge that gap?
Larry: You tell me your understanding of LMA.
Steve: So this person has to lead Yep. The people underneath them, manage them, and hold them accountable. To me, accountability and manager are the same thing.
Larry: Me. So the actions, I'll go into the act my what I consider the behaviors or the critical actions of a manager versus a lead follower. Because lead lead following, to me, I put leader and follower in the same category. They're the same. Right?
If you're following really, really well, you're going to naturally lead others into more effective action. So your most effective followers will become the leaders within your organization. Yeah. So lead man lead leaders and followers are the same thing. So managers, I find, have three responsibilities.
The first is to create and communicate the desired end state, the why. Where are we going?
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: The second one and that might be what they mean by lead. Right? Didn't that lead, manage, accountability? Second piece, once I have the clear desired end state, my job is to make sure that everyone has the resources, the knowledge, and the authority to lead. Right, to make good choices on their own.
So that's a lot about education, resourcing, budgeting, that type of stuff. The last one is be a safety net case of failure. Right? And that's the one I've never heard anyone else ever talk about that. Like, the most effective managers in the world, the ones that create the best leaders, if you ask the leaders under the best managers in the world, how did you feel, what they inevitably will say is empowered and safe.
Mhmm. Right? I can make decisions. I knew if I made decisions, they got my back. That critical role is unbelievably important.
Now accountability. Do I have to hold someone accountable if I create an environment where they're safe, they're empowered to lead, they have all the resources to do it, and they understand and hold the reason why? No. There is no accountability.
Steve: I don't
Larry: it's automatic. Now when we get into the actions of a of a lead follower, clearly understate the desired end state. Right? So, like, I will not allow someone to task me unless I understand why I'm doing something. Mhmm.
Second thing is always collect resources. Like, I always have to create knowledge, skills, authority, resources. The third one, which is critically important, is overreport information. So if a manager needs accountability, the their followers their lead followers aren't fulfilling one of their primary roles, which is overreport. Right?
Why as a follower do I wanna overreport? I can't be wrong if if you know everything I'm doing. Right. Right? I can't ever be wrong.
You can change your mind, but you have to say you changed your mind because you know exactly what I'm doing. If I'm over reporting, then as a manager, I don't need to hold you accountable. Yeah. And the the last one is the most important one, ask for help, right, as a leader.
Steve: So how do we encourage over reporting? Because I think that's one of the frustrations. Right? As a manager, you feel like you have to drag the people along. The
Larry: I would say the biggest thing is you have to you have to create the environment where it it means more to them to give you information than it means to you to get it.
Steve: So how do
Larry: we do that? Sense?
Steve: It does make sense. So So how do we create that environment?
Larry: What? You have to understand their purpose. What do they care about? Right? And once I understand what they care about, then I can tie reporting to what they care about, and they're doing it for themselves or not doing it for me.
Yeah. If I'm making them do it for me, you're always you're you're pushing a boulder
Steve: uphill. Right.
Larry: I'm pulling it from you. Yep. I'm pulling it. No. You have to wanna do it more than I need it.
Yeah. And so I have to understand what's driving you. Once I understand what's driving you, that purpose, we've talked about purpose a number of times, alignment and purpose. If I deeply understand your purpose, I can get you to do anything.
Steve: Yeah. And so for everyone that's ever dealt with a salesperson that's not putting in their numbers, like, this is there's some Yep. There's some gold right here. The other thing you you touched on was safety. And I think, like, I've worked with a lot of people that struggle with delegation.
Yep. And one mistake I see all the time is if someone makes a mistake, they freak out. And if you they make mistake and you freak out, they're not gonna make any more mistakes, and now you're stuck with a person that's frozen in action.
Larry: Yeah. Fear. Fear will freeze them in action all the time.
Steve: So how do you empower people? Or how do you how do you encourage that safety net? Because Yeah. It's something that I've kinda have to, like, I swear I have this conversation, like, once a week. So,
Larry: everyone's not gonna like this answer.
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: Maybe. You gotta slow down to go faster. The I have to be three steps ahead of you all the time. I gotta be three steps ahead of everyone all the time. Meaning, when you fail, I have to have already understood what failure that's gonna be and ensure that it doesn't hurt you or the organization, and I have to let you fail.
So I will the my people, will often get surprised. It's usually only two times, and then they expect it. They'll come to me completely embarrassed, upset, like, oh, shit. I gotta tell you what happened. I'm like, oh, this happened.
Mhmm. You knew? Like, yeah. I knew that was gonna happen. And here's the three things I did to make sure that that didn't hurt you.
It didn't hurt me. It didn't hurt the organization. And in that, they get amazing trust. Yeah. Now and then it's like, okay.
It's a learning point. Like, I created the space for you to learn. What lesson did we learn in this? So failures are never really failures. Like I said at the beginning, we plan to fail.
Every plan that we put together, we have 19 versions of it that go to crap. So my job is to as a manager is to make sure that you can never hurt yourself. You can never hurt the organization. Yeah. And in doing that, you then have the confidence to work on it.
Like, make take chances, make mistakes, and bring them forward. The other one, I'd say a big one is you have to create an environment where no is okay.
Steve: Yeah. Can you spend upon that?
Larry: Yeah. Most people, it's yes. Like, if the CEO comes and tell if I go, like, again, if you watch our calls, like, I can get on a call. The CEO go to my junior person and say, Matthew, I want you to do this, and you'll hear him say no. And that doesn't happen
Steve: Right.
Larry: Often. But we have a formula. You're allowed to say no if you tell me why it's a no and how you make it a yes. Yeah. So we want people to say no more than they say yes because then their yes means something.
If you say yes to everything and you don't hold your commitments, your yes means nothing. Right. And so that you have to empower your team to say no. Why are you saying no? And how do we make it a yes?
Steve: I mean, a lot of people are gonna have a hard time with that one. So
Larry: because they don't like they don't wanna take the time.
Steve: Yeah. Right. So one thing that we had talked about in in, you know, going through this training with you guys is that this is not necessarily principles you learned from the Navy SEALs. Yes. No.
Larry: I wish.
Steve: Yeah. So how did you go from your experience in Navy SEALs to get in a position now where you're able to speak on it? Like, what was that journey like?
Larry: Yeah. It's what people take for grant what they make the assumption is that I was sat down in seal officer class, and they taught me all this stuff. And if so, I would have a lot less scars, literal and figurative. Yeah. Like, they'd know this wasn't it at all.
And and I was in an environment where you couldn't fail. Like, I didn't get a chance to fail and learn and be an effectively an ineffective leader, or else I would have died and people I loved would have died. Like, it would have been bad. So I had to you know, it was trial by fire in this crucible of war, and I got through with that and started a company. And I made all the mistakes because I was just taken for granted that everyone operated the way the seals do, and it wasn't the case.
Yeah. So that would I I would say would be the biggest thing is, like, a big difference between, like, Jocko's work and our work is Jocko and Leif, which are they're amazing guys. They're from SEAL team three. Leif and I were at the Naval Academy together. Like, they they have good stuff.
But they wrote that book right out of the SEALs. Like and it is amazing good content, but isn't based on business. Mhmm. Like, you have to look you have to look at how to apply that in a business. I I started and ran four companies before I wrote a book on leadership.
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: So the concepts of what you're reading isn't direct from the seals. What it was was all the things that were wrong in in the civilian world, in normal business world, and I had this amazing example of a high functioning team. So when someone something didn't work in one of my companies, I would go back and say, you know, why does Beau not do anything he says he's gonna do? And why does John, as one of my sales, he always did everything I said he was gonna do. What was the difference?
And it was in that gap that I found these principles. Then on top of that, we were in very technical training companies and surveillance, counter surveillance products, intelligence, counterintelligence, what we started with. Then we went into personal safety and self defense and then school safety and business safety. But it was at the school when they started having us assess their bullying programs as a student safety concern, and I identified that they didn't have a bullying problem. They had a leadership development problem that leadership is using
Steve: How was that received?
Larry: It you've experienced this a number of times with me. It's like a paradigm shift.
Steve: Yeah.
Larry: Initially, it was like, what are you talking about? And I said, well, leadership is using your power to help someone. Bullying is using your power to hurt someone. Mhmm. If you have bullying, you don't have leadership.
Like, it is that's as easy as it is. And at that point, like, oh, crap. You're right.
Steve: Right.
Larry: And so then their immediate response is, well, can you have a can you write a leadership development program for middle school? Yeah. As a seal, like, no one could ask me anything that I wouldn't say, yes. I could do that even if I'm wrong, with no intent to do it. And two weeks later, they had a funded program.
They came back and said, we're ready for your program. I don't know what you're talking about. So I had to write a leadership development program for middle schoolers, so fifth, sixth, seventh grade, eighth grade. And the kicker was the teachers union wouldn't allow us to train the teachers in the program because they didn't have any time in their schedule. So we had to use teachers that were opening a lesson on respect the morning of the lesson and sharing it with a fifth grader, which meant that we had to distill very complex things down to these fundamental principles.
And it's those fundamental principles that are the foundation of everything we teach. Because once you boil if you can boil communication down to a fifth grade level through a teacher that is untrained in it, you've got literally the gold of communication or respect or leadership. So that's where it all came from.
Steve: That's fascinating. And now you're talking about intelligent and counterintelligence, and I think that's great because when I first met you and Annie at Collective Genius Yep.
Larry: I was
Steve: looking at both of you guys, and I was like, okay. That's a couple that I don't wanna mess with. Right? One's a former Navy Seal, and one, I think, can kill me with about anything.
Larry: Her mind. Yes. Yeah. That's she'll make you wanna kill yourself. That's the dangerous part.
Yeah. The guy at least comes straight at you with with weapons. She'll just make you want to jump off the roof.
Steve: She's strong with her mind. So Yes. The other thing too, you know, in going through this, you know, hopefully, you guys are getting value from this. The Jason Medley, right, who runs against CG, I kinda share with him. I was like, you know, like, in talking to Larry, like, man, it's, like, really profound, really, grounded.
Right? Really, almost like, Buddhist or Taoist or whatever principles. And I was like, Larry is kinda like a Gandhi that's killed a lot of people.
Larry: So Just the bad ones.
Steve: Yeah. Just the bad ones. So, And no more.
Larry: I try to stay away from that Yeah. At this point.
Steve: So in the book, there are six pillars. Yep. What are the six pillars?
Larry: So I look at these as these pill these are the pillars of high performance. And for me and this is something I think we connected very much on was the the power of language and precision in language. And so for me, these pillars are just how I break up a very complex thing into functional pieces. So we start with success. We have, I think, one of the biggest problems that's been produced by our school system is that in order to achieve something, right, to have high performance, you have to work hard and suffer today for the prize, the accomplishment tomorrow.
We've been taught that from the first time we went into school based on a school system being designed during the industrial revolution where we need factory workers. Right? Factory workers need to be no. Like, today's gonna suck, but someday you're gonna get a gold watch and a retirement. We are long past that, yet our school system is still based on it.
And so we, as entrepreneurs, get stuck in this trap of, if I just keep grinding today, someday I'll have success, and that is fundamentally flawed.
Steve: Right.
Larry: So redefining success into something that is sustainable over a long period of time to produce an optimized daily experience is the first part of it. The next connection that we made is that as a human being, our success is a 100% dependent on our ability to coordinate action with others. When we coordinate action well I'm gonna
Steve: ask you going to the second pillar. Before getting the second pillar, I just wanna touch on a couple of things on the success. Right? So first, I remember when I when you first met said this, alright, because we were going through our coaching, I was like, crap. Right?
My definition of success is kind of what it was programmed into me. Yeah. And there was a lot of, like there was, like, a few weeks of, like, reflection. Right? Because, you know, like, we didn't go to get ice cream if we studied hard.
Alright? If we turn in our homework, we got ice cream if we got a 100% of the test.
Larry: That's it. Right?
Steve: We rewarded, we were rewarded results.
Larry: The accomplishment.
Steve: The accomplishment, not the behavior. So we have this achievement addiction. Right?
Larry: It's accomplishment addiction. Yeah. Goal or objective, one after another.
Steve: Right. So there was a and as as I'm going through this, where I was like, man, like, everyone or at least people I network with has this problem as well.
Larry: That's why I've I've worked with three billionaires. I mean, and big I can't share the names here, but, like, very well known big name people and miserable. Yeah. They can buy anything they want in the entire world. Their families for the five generation buy anything they want, and they're miserable based on the fact that there is nothing left to achieve, yet their entire sense of self and worth is based on achievement.
Steve: Right. So and I remember I had a private conversation with you and Annie. And one thing I think kinda surprised you guys was, like, knowing that I have this accomplishment addiction, I'm actually a happy person.
Larry: Yeah. I I'm very surprising. I'm glad Yeah. That you're not miserable.
Steve: Yeah. So but I know that a lot of people that are, unfortunately. So
Larry: okay.
Steve: So, that's the success. So how does someone flip that switch?
Larry: The core piece is that success is not an accomplishment. Success is a feeling that a human has.
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: That's the big awareness. Like, we we always believe that we connected accomplishment and success together, but it's not true. An accomplishment, it can be done outside of a a human. Right? Like, a business can accomplish something.
A business cannot experience success
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: Because success is a feeling. So one, understand that. So success is an optimized daily experience sustainable over time. If I have all the accomplishments in the world, but that's not that's misery to do it and it's not sustainable. I'm not successful even though I have accomplishments.
Yeah. And so shifting the focus on what are we focusing on. When we focus on fulfillment instead of accomplishment, we get both. Yeah. If we focus on accomplishment, you'll never be fulfilled.
How do we find fulfillment? So fulfillment has to be driven by an internally a deeply held internally derived purpose. So if the this is where comparison gets us screwed. So if I'm compare like and then it's really bad in the real estate space. Right?
Like, I because it's all about how many deals, what size of deals, all that stuff. Plus social media. And social media. So if you fundamentally understand this, it it can help. As soon as something else determines my purpose, even if I achieve it, I can't feel fulfillment.
That's a huge piece. Right? So if I look at you and you have a really nice car, and I'm like, I need to have that really nice car. You've now given me my purpose. I get that really nice car.
It still feels empty because I didn't deeply and internally want the car to begin with. Mhmm. So anytime that I'm comparing myself to someone else, I'm setting myself up to suffer to accomplish something that will give me no fulfillment.
Steve: Yeah. It's a crazy trap.
Larry: So That's why social that's why I'm not on social media. Like, I I can't be because it's literally designed to make you miserable, feel insufficient so that you will be a consumer.
Steve: And pillar number two.
Larry: Success can only be experienced as a human through tightly coordinated action with others. So team becomes pillar two. Yeah. Our ability to team determines our success in life, both the the feeling of it, like we were just talking about, and the accomplishments. You can't accomplish anything big on your own, and you can't feel good even if you produce an accomplishment at the cost of the connection with others.
Steve: So the guy says I did this
Larry: all on my own? He's miserable. Fuck if he actually did.
Steve: I don't
Larry: know if I can say that. Sorry.
Steve: Too late now. It's live. Yeah. Sorry. Let me
Larry: beat that one out.
Steve: Yeah. So alright. So the guy says, like, I did this on my own. He's miserable.
Larry: Odds are that he's trying to prove something. Why? Because he's miserable. Right.
Steve: Because he
Larry: doesn't have people in his life, and it's not true. He's got clothes on. He didn't sew them. Yeah. He learned something from someone.
He didn't create that knowledge on his own. It's impossible for us to survive on this planet, much less thrive. Our level of thriving determines on our ability to coordinate action with others, our ability to team. Yeah. The most successful people in this world team at an extremely high level.
The homeless people on the side of the road can't coordinate action with themselves, much less people willing to help them.
Steve: Yeah. And maybe that's the reason why I'm a giant Elon Musk fanboy. Yep. Alright. Like, he's coordinated action in a very, very high level doing, impossible things.
You know, potentially civilian civilization changing Yep. Things. And by the way, guys, like, we'll stop all the stuff we're talking about here, like, it's all in this book. Right?
Larry: Yeah. I
Steve: How leadership's held back. Yeah. How leadership actually works. So, definitely check that out. I got this off Amazon.
It's amazing.
Larry: So team.
Steve: So where is language in is language in pillar one or pillar two?
Larry: Language is before you're even allowed to have a pillar.
Steve: Okay.
Larry: Got it. Because we talk about the concept that, well, it's good you brought it up here. Right? So our ability to coordinate action with others determines our success in life. It determines our experience of life.
As a human being that is on not handicapped, my ability to communicate, my ability to use language is my easiest tool for coordinating action. So to me, language is our most powerful asset for production and success. Yeah. The the better and more effective my language is, the better I coordinate action with others, the more success I experience.
Steve: So I'm bringing this up because I I was as again, as I was reading this book, I was thinking, like, that Annie closed me. Right? Because on on on the conversation where she was, you know, you know, talking about all the different options, she's like, Steve, would you like to be on these calls? Right? And I said to her, of course, I wanna be on these calls.
Whatever you guys are speaking, whatever you're my team, I wanna be able to speak the same languages, though. Yeah. That was my thought process. But then I'm thinking as I'm reading these books, like, did Annie put that in my head, or was that my idea?
Larry: You put it in your head.
Steve: Yeah. So I have to ask her directly, but I suspect you're you're correct. Alright. What's the third pillar?
Larry: So six your success is determined by the teams that you're on. The teams that you're on is determined by your behavior. So behavior becomes the third pillar. And behavior in two flavors of it, your individual behavior and your ability to influence others' behavior. So behavior change.
Yeah. Our ability to change our behavior is what enables us to optimize teams or be get invited onto a team, be on a team. So we're you'll see it continues to get deeper and deeper. Right? Our success determined by our behavior.
And that leads us to our fourth pillar where our behavior is determined by our ability to self regulate.
Steve: So before we get into self regulation, you have a distinctionary?
Larry: I do. Distinction Larry is what they say.
Steve: Is that what's the dictionary? Okay. Behavior, I think, could be is a term that everyone all agrees on definition. So what do you mean by
Larry: behavior? Behavior are the observable actions that are repeatable of a human being. Yeah. So how they And behavior to me is repeatable. Got it.
Like, behave an individual action is not a behavior.
Steve: Mhmm. Right?
Larry: So we can some people have actions that are not repeatable or predictable. That's not behavior in my book.
Steve: Yeah. So how they act repeatedly Yes. Is their behavior.
Larry: Is their behavior. Another word for that would be their culture or their personality. Those are all the same to me, very similar words. Yeah.
Steve: And if your behavior is not optimal, you're gonna go to off the island. You're off the team.
Larry: You're not gonna be on a highly effective team. So your your level of behavior determines the team you get to be on. If you have highly effective behavior, you'll actually be kicked off a low functioning teams. That's an interesting thing. It works for the players.
Think about it, though. If you're super high functioning and everyone else sucks, what do they do?
Steve: Leave. I don't know if they kick you out. You
Larry: as well. They leave because all it does is show how ineffective their behavior is, and they can't have it.
Steve: Yeah.
Larry: You've probably been on that before. Or you've been in a team where you're the higher functioning person on it, and they don't watch you around. Yeah.
Steve: I don't know if I've been there. I think I've just kinda, like, left. I was like
Larry: Oh, you you left.
Steve: I was like, I I don't know what is going on here. I don't know what are you guys doing, but I am out of here.
Larry: Yeah. So you'll notice that that it's the same thing. It's like Yeah. You're a bright light around dark, and the dark doesn't like the light. So they're gonna want you off.
Just like if you're low functioning on a high functioning team, they want you out because you're an anchor.
Steve: That's interesting.
Larry: Yeah. It's both sides.
Steve: Yeah. And I think it's, so behavior then, would you say, is in a way the
Larry: your level of function. Yep. Funk so for the way we determine functional level is size of commitments and consistency of holding those. Yeah. So if you're you have effective behavior, you make big commitments, and you hold those commitments really well.
Yeah. And that's and you can see how this works. Right? So if I make big commitments and hold them well, then I get to be on teams that make big commitments and hold
Steve: them all. We're talking about, like, a players. Right? If you're on a if you're an a player, you get to play on a teams.
Larry: Yep. If
Steve: you're a c player, you're getting kicked off that team pretty quickly.
Larry: Yeah. That's where self regulation use your self regulation to change your behavior to become an a player.
Steve: Yeah. So self regulation is next.
Larry: Self regulation is the next. So self self regulation is the ability to use my intention to modify my behavior, and that comes in physical, mental, emotional flavors. Right? So physical self regulation, mental self regulation, and emotional self regulation. That means I can use my intention to control my emotions.
So say I feel really scared to be on this podcast. I can use my self regulation to continue to take action despite my fear.
Steve: Power through it. Yeah.
Larry: To power forward. Say you start to really question or push me on what I'm a point I make, I can use my self regulation not to punch you in the face.
Steve: Is that emotion or mental? I'm not sure.
Larry: It's a combination. It's it's emotional. Right? Self regulation, leading to the need not to physically self regulate. So that ability to use intention and control our behavior mentally, physically, and emotionally determines our behavior and our ability to change our behavior.
Steve: So Yeah.
Larry: It becomes a foundation of behavior.
Steve: And the last step is
Larry: Last step
Steve: of Or last pillar?
Larry: Two more. Two more. So we've got four so far. Think of these four as the foundation of high performance. Right?
Success, team, behavior, self regulation. At that point, we start to we have to master those of ourselves or at least get good at them better than those around us. When we start to to illustrate effective behavior in all four of those pillars, we're going to produce results. When we produce results, that's automatically going to evoke effective action in those around us, which is leadership. So the fifth pillar is leadership.
Leadership being where I start turning from internally leveraging those four pillars to externally helping others leverage those four pillars. When I do that, I'm leading. It's very natural progression.
Steve: Right. And people wanna follow Because you're effective. Right.
Larry: If you're ineffective, if you can't do those first four, good luck leading.
Steve: Well, then you're gonna be, like, directing, and no one wants to listen.
Larry: Micromanagement. Yeah. Right?
Steve: Then what's the last
Larry: someone that has no authority.
Steve: What's the last pillar?
Larry: So we get to pillar five. Now all of a sudden, we got momentum. Right? Because if you start having the ability to have people make big commitments and hold them and direct the commitments they make, now all of a sudden, we get movement, and that's where planning comes in. So planning becomes our final pillar, and that planning gives us the ability to direct the energy or the power that we produce through the first five.
Steve: So, we had a call, a few weeks ago. And this right here, number six, pillar number six, was kinda like a a shocker to me. Right? So, the example I've always used is, like, I'll take a car, right, maybe a Prius, and I'll go, like, a 100. Right?
Yeah. It's kinda shaky. Right? But it's fine. Right?
And then we'll go 110. It's like, okay. We have a problem with this Prius. Like, let's pull over or let's go to the pit stop. Yeah.
Get some new tires, maybe some new brakes. Right, and see how we handle, like, okay. Now the the suspension's okay, but the wind noise is pretty bad. Alright. Let's maybe get us go to another pit stop, get a spoiler.
Whatever. Right? Now we go 120. Spoiler.
Larry: You go right to spoiler.
Steve: Whatever it is. Right? But something to to fix the the the the airflow. Right? And I will keep going till I whatever breaks next
Larry: Yeah.
Steve: And it will fix that. And this is, like, my journey in fifteen years of business. Yeah. Right? Let's go fast.
Break something, fix it. Let's go faster, break that, fix it. Let's go faster. And it's how I've lived my whole career. Yeah.
And then I hear this thing about planning, and there's actually things you can do to prevent things from breaking.
Larry: You could. It's amazing.
Steve: It's crazy to me. So what are those three things we do to prevent or at least be prepared for something to break? So
Larry: the first the first thing I like to share is it's the same mindset. Like, you have someone, and I'm I'll tell them, hey. You need to plan do some planning. And what's their
Steve: first time.
Larry: I don't have time. Like, okay. This will be the easiest. This is like a softball. So you you don't have time to do a plan.
What is that telling you?
Steve: We're gonna have a lot less time later on.
Larry: We should probably plan. Like, when you don't have time to plan, like, when we get overcapacity, when we're going a 100 miles an hour and the Prius is shaking Mhmm. What what always shows up is you stop learning. That's the first thing you give up when we're going fast.
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: Next thing you give up when we go fast is leading. Right? Leading effectively. So, like, I'll just jump in and get it done. Right?
Like, I'll hold the windshield on, and then the la the third thing to go is planning. Like, we don't plan. We don't have time to plan. We just respond to whatever fire we got. Yeah.
And when you're in that environment, that's the world screaming at you that you don't know something.
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: You need to coordinate action better. You need to lead better, and you need to plan. Yeah. And so that's, like, the first thing I like to get across is what I'll it's so easy as an entrepreneur where you're just overwhelmed. Like, that was the other big thing we did on the last call that we talked about is we're so overwhelmed because there's so many things to look at.
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: Because it's not just the brakes and the tires and the airflow. It's, you know, are the doors on? Who's riding the who's riding the car? Where are we going? How fast are we going there?
What time
Steve: do we have to
Larry: get like, do we have enough gas to get there? It's just so many things to pay attention to that you don't know where to put your focus and attention. Planning is one of the tools that we use to to identify where do I need to put my attention. Like, you may be working on the tires and the brakes when in reality, you really need to work on the fuel pump and the amount of the gas tank.
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: And so using, for me, it's always process and structure. Right? Using a structure to ensure that I'm putting my attention in the right place enables me to coordinate action at a higher level, which then enables me to have more success.
Steve: Yeah. And so there were three actions, though. There was the
Larry: Desired end state.
Steve: No. There was the, like, backup plan, the,
Larry: Oh, for, after action reviews.
Steve: Yeah. Was it after action review? It was the
Larry: Avoid mitigate backup.
Steve: There you go.
Larry: Yeah. So we call it the ultimate solution tool. There you go. Yep. Like I said at the beginning, every time we do a plan, we'll do one plan that's perfect, and then we do 18 plans that are all messed up.
Right? All the things that are broken. In those plans, one of the things that we identify, the structures that I put in place is every problem we would identify, and we would identify problems before we started the car. Right? So before we got in the Prius I don't
Steve: have time for that.
Larry: I know. Before I got in the Prius, we would say, like, what could happen out there? Yeah. We'd identify the problems, and then we'd solve it three ways. We would come up with a solution for avoidance.
Mhmm. How do what could I do today to avoid the problem showing up when we start driving?
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: What could I do to mitigate it? So say I try to avoid it, doesn't happen, the wheel shake comes anyway. What do I do to mitigate the effect of that? Like, how do I make it not hurt so bad that the wheels are shaking? And then the third piece of it is I tried to avoid it.
I couldn't. I tried to mitigate it. It became catastrophic. What's my backup plan? So the wheels actually fell off.
I'm doing a 100. Yeah. What's my backup plan to get to the objective? And that simple formula is so amazing anytime you have a problem. Yeah.
Even if you're in the problem, like, say you didn't listen to me and you aren't doing this ahead of time, you're driving down the road. As soon as we identify wheel shake, okay, what can I do to avoid the wheel shake? What can I do to mitigate it if it shows up? And what can I do to back have a backup plan in case it's catastrophic?
Steve: Yeah. And there's a couple of things. Right? Like, first, when you said it, I was like, god. That's such so common sense.
Larry: Right? Yeah.
Steve: And it was like, I I shared the story. Like, when I learned how to snowboard, like, when you're learning how to snowboard, everyone falls off when they get off the lift.
Larry: Yeah.
Steve: Right? And I was falling off, getting off the lift. And my buddy's brother says to me, he's like, why don't you stick your foot out so you don't fall? I was like, obviously. Right?
And so I don't fall anymore. Snowboarding. Right? And so, like, everything you say is so commonsensical. It's it's crazy to me Yeah.
That we didn't do this before.
Larry: It's I I used to say it's these are simple concepts. They aren't. They're elegant concepts. Right? Like, an iPhone is not a simple thing.
It's an elegant solution. Right? The fact that it comes with no instruction manual, and I can give it to my dad. And with no instruction manual, he can figure it out. The amount of thought design process structure discipline that goes into creating such an elegant solution is critical.
And it's to me, that's what I've done is I've spent so much time distilling complex things down. It creates the environment to have an elegant solution where you're like, oh, yeah. I knew that. That's easy.
Steve: Yeah. Because if it's
Larry: if you knew it, it was easy, then you can actually implement it.
Steve: Right. So I wanna talk about one last thing before we go into questions. So law of leadership.
Larry: Larry's golden rule.
Steve: Yeah. Larry's golden rule. And, like, again, one of those things, like, when you said it, like, oh, jeez. Like, how was I missing it? Can you elaborate on the law of leadership?
Larry: Yep. So the go Larry's golden rule of leadership. Do not lead the way you want to be led. Lead to the functional level of your team.
Steve: Right.
Larry: So we, generally, as entrepreneurs, are higher performers than those around us, or we wouldn't have chosen this and wouldn't still be in the game. That means that, generally, we want to be given a goal or objective and left alone to figure it out. So we like to be empowered to take action. Because of that, we think everyone else is the same. Right?
Everyone else is like us, and they just need a little bit of direction, and they'll just get it done.
Steve: They'll figure it out.
Larry: How is that working for you?
Steve: Well, it took a long time to figure out it wasn't.
Larry: Yeah. And for most of us Yeah. We live in frustration because that isn't what happens. Right. So we go back to the fundamental thing I talked about of functional level.
So size of commitments and consistency of holding them. If someone is high functioning, meaning they have they make big commitments and they hold them all the time, they get to be empowered through light influence. Right? Just kinda influence their action. They're empowered to take action.
That would be on the one side of it. On the other side of it, you have low functioning where they either make little commitments and are inconsistent, or they make can make big commitments and be inconsistent. Low functioning people, they need to be controlled through force. And as an entrepreneur, most of us, what we do is over empower our team. Right?
They're lower functioning than than what the way in which we're leading them. We lead them that way because that's how we wanna be led, but we are high higher functioning.
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: So I've never been one for leadership style. To me, this isn't style. You can use whatever style of leadership you want as long as you increase the control as the functional level of the individual or team goes down.
Steve: Yeah. And, again, it was so common sense when you said it to me. Yep. Right? But I was frustrated in this one capacity until you helped me, kinda bridge that gap.
So, guys, if you guys get value today, you know, again, check out the book, how leadership actually works. We also have, seal team leaders dot com. The promo code is disruptors. You'll get 10% off. You guys can check that out.
Like, I'm not kidding when I say, you know, Larry's had a profound impact on on my team. Right? But not just that. Right? Working with you and Annie Yeah.
I feel like I'm a better leader, a better, husband, and better father as as I'm as I'm learning these principles and and applying it. Right? We're using desired end states in conversations at home.
Larry: It's amazing. Because they're all that's what I love the most about distillation is this is as applicable with your 14 year old daughter as it is with your wife or your spouse or your your business partner or your team. There it it doesn't matter. They all work the same way.
Steve: Yep. So, and then real quick again before we go into questions. Guys, we do have our live workshop coming up next month. Go to, disruptors.com/blueprint, or maybe disruptors.com/closesup. I'm not sure.
The team will put up the right, information, but go check it out. We're gonna be going over two and a half days how my company works, right, how our wholesale operation works, everything from lead intake to following up to all the different systems, hiring, firing, a lot of the things that we talked about here at a high level, but how it applies in our actual business. Right? So go check it out. Two and a half days inside our office, and let's go ahead and go to the questions.
So we already have people buying it, and we also had people say, thank you for your service. So, first question I got here is from Summer, who you got to meet earlier. Right? This This might be a difficult question.
Larry: Okay.
Steve: Knowing what you know now, would you still join the service?
Larry: So, like, it's it's been a long, hard recovery. Right? It's been fourteen years, and I'm never gonna be the same. It's it's a challenge based on the fact of not only what I got to do, the people I got to do it with, the skills that I learned, and the benefits that I've been able to leverage from that experience to now what has been hundreds of thousands of people that we've we work with. I would say yes.
I would just based and I've kinda built to sacrifice myself, so that's part of it anyway. I'm like, yeah, I'd still sacrifice myself. I think the bet the the better question is I've got two young boys, a eight year old and a five year old. Would I want them to be a SEAL? And the answer is no.
No. Like, definitely not. Like, I would no. I would not want them to do that. On the other hand, the day that I walked into my first platoon, I finally felt at home.
Like, I never felt like I fit anywhere in the world, and I felt like I fit in. And it got to be who I really was with no filters. That is what I want them to feel. If they need to feel that by being a SEAL, great. If they need to feel that being a cross dressing ballerina, great.
I don't care. I want them to feel that. So I would support them, but if it was up to me, the answer would be no. The cost is too great.
Steve: Yeah. I mean, I think that's, at a key point here. Right? If we're talking about the suffering. Yep.
What is besides the obvious physical trauma, what are some other things that, you know, you had to undo? Because I saw it when I was reading your your thank you at the very end. Right? Like, there are people that you had to go and, like, sit down with and journal and Oh, I'm
Larry: to undo a lot of the psychological trauma. This work. Yeah. Yeah. The, for me, being a leader, being an an officer within it, I had to put myself in a place to make decisions in which my best friends in the world could die.
And I had to ask them to go into environments that were extremely high risk. I didn't know that I might have to make a decision to tell you to go through that door, and as soon as you do, you're gonna get shot. Mhmm. That in order to do that without hesitation, I had to create a massive, psychological break between my my emotional and physical selves. Meaning, I had to give no concern for my physical well-being, and I had to have no I'd experience no emotions.
Because if I experienced an emotion, it would create a a time gap in the decision I didn't make people die. So that's what's been hardest to heal of of mending those parts of my psyche. Like, there's to this day, I walk around sometimes bleeding. I don't know because I just don't feel it. Right?
There are times where I pick metal out of my body. It's bleeding. I'm like, oh, that's not supposed to be there. Yeah. Right?
It just didn't feel it. And and that emotional disconnection of not experiencing emotions creates an impossibility to connect with other humans, at a deep level, and that's a big cost to pay.
Steve: Were you that way before? You don't I or
Larry: I was predisposed to it Mhmm. Both by, on the autistic spectrum and the Asperger side of things, which means I don't connect with humans normally, in a normal way, and I don't never really experience emotions the same as as other people. And as a kid that I was a little dorky kid in Pittsburgh. I got picked on quite a bit. I learned to not allow my emotions to to direct my actions, which helped build that capability for what I needed as a as a officer in the teams.
Steve: Yeah. Because I'm asking these questions because I've got, I think, through different influence, right, from parenting or whatever. Right? I also am pretty self contained or really tightly controlled as far as emotions go. Like, self regulating my emotions is not a necessary Yeah.
Effort. Right? And so, you know, the when we were going through this exercise, I kinda made I kinda share these stories with my kids too. And my kids are like, no, dad. You have emotions.
You have two. Like, okay. What are they? Like, happy and angry.
Larry: That was mine. Yeah. Well, I wasn't happy. It was normal, neutral, whatever we would call that, and angry.
Steve: Well, then I shared I asked, I was on a call with, Paul, Paul Sparks. We we we have a new joint venture together, and I was, like, kinda sharing with us. Like, hey. You know, I know people are upset, and these negotiations have been really tough. And it seems like I'm not warm and fuzzy.
But look, that's just who I am.
Larry: Yeah. I do care. Right.
Steve: You just can't see it. It's like so I talked to Vivian. She's in the backseat. Like, hey, Vivian. You know, can you just share with mister Paul, like, the two emotions I have?
And she says, oh, yeah. It's anger and disappointment. I was like, that's not what we agreed on.
Larry: Disappointment replaced happy.
Steve: Yeah. I was like, man, that was not the conversation. But I I I really appreciate that answer. Right? Would your have your kids join the seal?
So, Josh Campbell on Facebook I'm sorry. Josh Chapel, on Facebook. What's the best way to teach your leaders these concepts?
Larry: To teach
Steve: these these principles that we just talked about? How can his team best learn these principles?
Larry: So, Josh, I'd say the the most important thing you can do is have the right language and the precision of language. And that's where again, I'm not pitching the book, but get the book because we have all of the language laid out. If you can just start to get your team to start using the words leader and manager coherently across the team, it to have an understanding of what responsibility is, the parts of it, those that language within the organization will have the biggest impact. And so that would be my business suggestion. The other thing, if you go to howleadershipactuallyworks.com, there's an assessment.
That assessment will lead to the course site, but there's a distinction area on that assessment.
Steve: So at
Larry: a minimum, go there and start looking at those and sharing those with your team. And if you can get your team to be able to kick out those those distinctions, that's gonna make a huge difference.
Steve: So Jaden doesn't know this yet, but we're gonna go to this dictionary, and we're gonna make placards and bars at each one. So everyone at a company is speaking the same language. But to add on to that, Josh, what I would recommend is just what I did. Hire Larry and his team.
Larry: Yeah. It would make it a lot easier.
Steve: Hire Larry and his team to coach our team. Right? Because, when I hired you, it wasn't because I was like, oh, you know, like, let's go ahead and hire Larry. It was I was making a decision Yep. To, let my team, take over all the teams Yep.
And I am removing myself. And I would just feel a little bit more confident about letting go if my team had, you know, one last leadership training that they can go through together. And when Annie's like, you wanna be on it? I was like, of course, I wanna be on it. Right?
Like and so and going through that journey, my team has leveled up so much. But what I didn't expect is I leveled up so much in going through that journey too.
Larry: Yeah. There's a the goal that you should have as a father and as a CEO is to become irrelevant.
Steve: Right.
Larry: You like, my job as a father is to be irrelevant to my children's lives because then they're actually free. And when they're free, I can we can truly love each other with no connection. But as long as they need me, there is there is not pure connection there, and it's the same thing in a business. My job is to create a business in which I am absolutely irrelevant in every way, shape,
Steve: and form.
Larry: And at that point, I've created something of significant value. Right.
Steve: And that was the objective when we reached out to you. So I feel a lot closer.
Larry: To being irrelevant? Yeah. Good. I'll join you there. Island of irrelevancy.
We can have fun.
Steve: Absolutely. So, Lada on YouTube is asking, what do you think of Space Force? Do you know what do you know about the Space Force?
Larry: I know Squad other than the the Apple TV show, which I love. Space Force. I didn't even know we actually had a Space Force until relatively recently I met someone on it. Part of the thing that's interesting for me is I pay attention to zero news Mhmm. And social media.
Nothing. I consume zero news because I was on the front lines where we were the biggest news story there was, and I'd come back and watch it and find out that every channel had a different story that was not true. And I found out just how much it is just entertainment, and it's entertainment that has me not feel good. So I I don't consume any of it. Yeah.
I have no idea. But if it's anything like the Apple show,
Steve: I'm
Larry: glad we have a space in person.
Steve: Well, so I was I remember when I was going through training, cell my sales trainer, years ago, and we were talking about, like, you know, fear and pain and so on. Right? Like, this is, like, present pain, present pleasure. Right? Those are two most powerful motivators.
And then future pain and future pleasure future pleasure. Right? And future pain is is fear. Mhmm.
Larry: And he
Steve: asked the question, like, what industry thrives off of fear? And his answer he was looking for was insurance. Right? Yeah. Which does make sense.
But my my brain went to news. Oh, that's all Whether it's Fox News or MSNBC, fear, fear, fear.
Larry: It's the only thing. And what's crazy about future future and past, right
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: Is that when we have worry like, this is what blows me away. In the present moment, we're good and feel good.
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: When we worry, we take the thing that we don't wanna experience in the future and bring it into the present so we can experience it today when it doesn't exist. Yeah. It gets absolutely pointless.
Steve: I'm gonna have you, record that, or we'll snip this out later and share it with some people I know. The Dana, follow-up question on YouTube. If you had to fire entire staff, how would you mentally rebuild quickly after burnout?
Larry: You burned out?
Steve: I'm guessing, Dan is burnt out. Yes.
Larry: If you have to Dan, if you have to fire your entire staff, you did that. Right? Just to be clear, like, you created that
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: Either based on some previous traumas that required you to do it again Mhmm. Or based on not having a lack of a lack of knowledge and skills. So first, I'd give yourself a break. Right? It's not your fault, and it is your responsibility.
Right? Yes. It's your responsibility. It's not your fault. So within that, my biggest thing would be you you gotta do some personal work before you start again or you're gonna recreate the same thing.
And this is something we haven't talked a ton about, but one small segment of what we do is we found that the biggest limitation of growth of a structurally sound company are the unresolved traumas of the CEO. Mhmm. And when we started applying the the battlefield trauma techniques that I was using to heal myself and other SEALs to executives, the growth was astounding in their companies. And so for something like that, that's, to me, some sort of unresolved trauma that you have in your life early on. We need to fix that before you start it again, or you'll create the same story all over again.
Steve: So it's crazy. So we talk about pillar one. We talk about success. And I was like, oh, crap. I need to figure some things out for myself.
And I meet with Annie. Yep. And she helped me uncover some of the things. Right?
Larry: Yep. Early on stuff.
Steve: And it's, like, really simple stuff. Right? Always is. But, you know, all that stuff, you know, the jokes. Right?
You know, like, the Asian kids and whatever. But, apparently, it did impact me, right, more than I thought. But as I go through this exercise with Annie and we learn about childhood trauma and my childhood trauma is not severe, but it existed.
Larry: So severity of the childhood trauma depends on the effect it has today. Right? Like, we like to think, well, because you didn't you weren't in a car bombing when you were three
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: It wasn't severe. But if it's impacted your life for thirty years, that's pretty severe. It's a very different point. Right? Like, it doesn't matter.
The impact is what determines the severity of the trauma, not the trauma.
Steve: Right.
Larry: We pretend, like, unless it's a big trauma, it doesn't count. That's not true. Yeah. Trauma is merely a lesson we learn when we felt out of control.
Steve: Right. So if
Larry: that lesson was strongly learned as a little kid, it could have a massive impact for your life moving on regardless of if it was your parents yelled at you once.
Steve: Right. And well, so with that experience with Annie, it was like an hour and a half. Right? A, it's a completely changed how I approach some conversations.
Larry: Mhmm.
Steve: And b, it's kinda like, you know, when you learn something, you kinda see it everywhere, you know, the particular activating system. I see childhood trauma everywhere.
Larry: You can't help it.
Steve: Is that something that you like, it was okay. That person is dealing with this. This person Yeah.
Larry: It's Does
Steve: that go through your mind?
Larry: It's weird because Annie and I are an amazing pair. Like, because we're we see the world in two different ways. When she sees you, she sees what you should be without your trauma.
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: Like, she sees your perfect self as as a higher power made you. Right?
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: I see what is causing you the all the problems to not be that today. So, like, I see you today with all the traumas, and she sees what you would look like with none. And it's painful for both of us because you see someone that you care about, you know, and you're like, oh, man. I'm seeing all the things they're causing their their problems with, and she sees them the way they should be experiencing life.
Steve: Yeah. So,
Larry: yeah, it's a pain it's a it's a burden. And we also had to learn that it's not our job to like, I could heal all that quick. Like, we could spend ten minutes in the next hour. I'd tell you all the things that you need to fix. You have to wanna let go of your trauma because your trauma keeps you safe.
And people that aren't ready to let it go, when you try to take it away from them, they feel like they're gonna die.
Steve: I've never heard the expression or the phrase, your trauma keeps you safe.
Larry: It does. That's all it is. So trauma is merely the lesson you learned Mhmm. In an environment where you felt like you didn't have control.
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: So that trauma is the tool that your subconscious uses to make sure that you survive in the future. That's it. If you think about this, say I'm in a say I'm in a big traumatic thing and I die, I don't suffer trauma. I only suffer trauma when I survive, and trauma is what I learned in that experience.
Steve: Got it. It's what's programmed to your psyche. It.
Larry: Yeah. I create stress. That's post traumatic stress. Got it. For me, people try to kill me for ten years.
Wasn't a joke. Why I wasn't making it up? I wasn't delusional. People actually did for ten years. For fourteen years, I lived where in a world where no one was trying to kill me with the lesson that everyone's trying to kill me.
Yeah. That created stress in my life because it wasn't true.
Steve: Yeah. Guys, if you have any other questions, please post them in here or post them on YouTube, post on IG, and so on. We'll see. What was some other things I I wanted to ask you? Because we've gone through a lot of different things.
Oh, yeah. One thing that's, is interesting. You know? Like, we're going through, again, your your training, And there is so much overlap with my training. Yeah.
Right? And Fundamentals. Is it it's crazy to me, the the the the communication principles, the the reasoning, the ideas behind it. For me, I learned it from sales training
Larry: Yep.
Steve: Which was very generously borrowed from, psychology. Yep. Right? Like, a lot of the sales principles at work, they work for psychological reasons.
Larry: That's it. Right? Human reasons.
Steve: Human reasons.
Larry: So, like I went the same route through neuroscience. Yeah. Like, I got really into the neuroscience, how the brain works
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: And how that drives behavior. That's where I went super deep in it. And once I started going and understanding the the way that human brains work, then all of a sudden, I had an insight into principles that would then work in other domains.
Steve: Yeah. So just so you know, so I don't get in trouble later on, I I am stealing some of your stuff and applying it myself as training. Please. Because FYI.
Larry: I've told you this. Our, you know, our mission is permanent positive change. That's why we are so free with content. Like, if we have the ability to to to leverage another person's avenue to get this in other people's hands, we do. And if we don't directly benefit from that monetarily, it's gonna show up somewhere.
So we are we're as free as can be. That's why, like, in that book, I I love at the very beginning, I give a warning. Like, this is a hard ride. Like, this is not easy. This is your brain's gonna hurt at the end of this Yeah.
Because I don't hold back. It's not like I'm holding back the best stuff that you'll come to me, and I'll sell you training. That's everything there is. And we also know that it's gonna melt your brain
Steve: three
Larry: or four times, and you might need help.
Steve: Yep. Absolutely. Last question here from, social media. If you can start life over again, will you do everything the same or take a different path?
Larry: I would take a diff do I know what I know now?
Steve: Knowing what you know now.
Larry: Knowing what I know now, hell yeah. I would take a much different path. Yeah. Yeah. There there's a some everything from small ones.
Like, I wouldn't go into the SEALs as an officer. I'd go in as an enlisted enlisted SEAL first. Mhmm. Get a couple years as an enlisted SEAL, and then I'd still probably wanna go the officer route. I would've gone slower.
Like, I was I was always striving towards the next big thing because I'm a high performer, so I didn't enjoy the experience because I was trying to get on to the next unit, the next thing, the next bigger task. I would not have started a business directly out of Seals. I would've worked for someone out other start ups to learn all the lessons. Like, that was a that'd be a huge one. Yeah.
And I'd start asking for help earlier. Like, those if I had to just kinda say big ones, those are the big ones.
Steve: What is your biggest struggle right now?
Larry: My biggest struggle right now is success. My life, my daily experience is not what I want it to be, and it's real frustrating to know it and to see it on a regular basis. And and I I feel not empowered to be able to change it. Like, my schedule, my timing, what I'm doing. Mhmm.
And that that's mostly based off of my trauma. I need to suffer for success. Like, I haven't healed that yet. So Yeah. As I heal that, I'll be able to change it.
Because no one I'm the one that makes my life miserable, and no one else does.
Steve: They know what it is I do. In getting your own way. So what what is, like, one like, the most, the major thing that you're doing to yourself that's causing you this?
Larry: Overscheduling. Overscheduling? Yeah. It used to be that I wasn't in control of my schedule. I was super reactive, and I've gotten that.
I've got a decent EA with that, but it's overcommitment. Right. Commitment to too many things.
Steve: Trying to do too many things?
Larry: Trying to do too many things. And I don't have someone regulating me on that yet. Yeah. And so that's where I I need some more work. And the other place is and we were talking about this before with purpose.
Right?
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: My purpose has not come from internally derived from me. I was doing it for my family and for creation and the benefit of other people. And so that's why I think a lot of things feel like struggle when they don't need to. And so I need to do some more work on getting clear on my purpose and then saying no to a lot more stuff. Yeah.
Steve: And I think that's, like, incredibly, like, profound. Right? Like, we we speak on these topics.
Larry: Right? Yeah.
Steve: And we we speak with with authority. Like, we understand it at a deep level, but doesn't mean, like, we've got it all figured out.
Larry: That's why I say the reason I'm teaching everything is because I need to learn it better. And I'm very open and transparent and vulnerable with that of, like, don't look at me as as perfect. I understand it, I think, better than just about anyone. I I can speak it better than most people that I've ever met, but I'm still actively working on it, or I wouldn't still be teaching it. Yeah.
That's
Steve: deep. What is your superpower?
Larry: My superpower is distillation. Yeah. And I can't I can't get my head off of something that I don't understand. Like, if I don't understand something, it's stuck until I do. And I understand through distillation, and I can distill complex things down into stuff that people feel like they are remembering.
Steve: Can we say distillation in a different way?
Larry: In a distillation in a different way?
Steve: In a more layman's terms.
Larry: Yeah. So, I'll give you an example. We talk about power all the time. Mhmm. Right?
Power is in all sorts of stuff. We need power. We have power. That's a source of power. There's a form of power.
Power. Power. Power. You look up power on a in a dictionary, it's useless, and it's not universal. I've distilled the concept of power into a few words, the ability to influence change.
That's four words.
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: But that those four words apply to power in any way, shape, or form. Electrical power applies influences change in a light bulb, creates light. Lightning is an uncontrolled power that will change if it hits your building or your car
Steve: Oh, yeah.
Larry: Military power, political power, interpersonal power, physical power,
Steve: you
Larry: know, martial arts. Right? No matter what, in any way, shape, or form, if you distill power to its fund the most fundamental nature, it's the ability to influence change. And that's what distillation is. And that's what I do that really, really well.
Steve: What book have you gifted more than any other?
Larry: Getting Things Done from David Allen.
Steve: I don't think I read that
Larry: one. Yeah. It's a it's a just it's a system for organizing tasks, emails, structure life. Like, his big concept is that and this is true. In our brain, our brain doesn't know the difference between I need to pay my taxes or I'm gonna get arrested or the light the light bulb is gonna is out on my back porch.
Right? Those open loops, our brain doesn't can't our brain can hold open loops, but it can't hold comparison comparative values.
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: So when we run too many open loops, our our short term memory gets overwhelmed, and we can't do anything. And so his concept is how to close loops and make sure they show up at the right time. So that's the one I've probably given to more people, and that's the one I I've bought it four times. Because whenever I get out of line, it's because I stop closing loops in my life, and so I use that one to get back.
Steve: Alright. So I'll have to check that out. I want you to leave a what do you think about thought you wanna leave the listeners with a message while I make just a couple quick announcements? Guys, if you have value today, please like, subscribe, share, comment. Like I said, this, having Larry on he mentors me and my team.
Right? So I'm hoping you guys got value out of it. So definitely, share this message, and then we do have Blockchain Whales. Do check that out. And then next month, we do have our blueprint live in my office two and a half days.
Again, going over how our wholesale business runs from a to z. When you walk out of our office, you know exactly what you need to do when you go back to your office. And we do have Matthew Potter next week. He is, an agent with Real with me, and, he's doing consistently 30 plus transactions every single month. So if you wanna hear his journey, how he's worked with hedge funds and so on, do tune in do tune in next week.
Alright. What are some last thoughts you'd like to leave all the listeners with? The
Larry: last and I still think this is the most important one, and we've already said it a couple times, but I'll say it again. Your success in life is a 100% determined by your ability to coordinate action with others. Anywhere in your life where you are struggling, you are not achieving what you wanna achieve, experiencing what you wanna experience, it's because you're not in the coordinated action you need to in that area of your life. Like, that that has changed my life more than anything else.
Steve: Yeah. So let me ask a question. I know it's it's supposed to be my last thought, but I have to ask a follow-up question. Because we've, I learned before the show that you're a maverick. Yes.
Mavericks tend to not be the best at coordination at coordinating action with others. No. I'm not. So how does that reconcile? Or how do you how do you, address that if you are a maverick?
I
Larry: and this came from Jocko Mhmm. Wilnick. Freedom through discipline. I believe it beyond anything else that discipline and structure gives you freedom.
Steve: Mhmm.
Larry: So I'm a maverick. I don't core by nature, I don't coordinate well with others, and I don't wanna be around anyone. Like, I would rather just be by myself Mhmm. Most of the time. So anywhere I have a shortcoming that is not gonna lead to life I want, I put structure and process and use my discipline to be able to leverage those processes and structures.
And so that I that's how I knot knot them together. I can be a maverick, and knowing I'm a maverick, I'm not gonna coordinate well. So I put processes and structures in place to be able to ensure that I coordinate well.
Steve: That makes total sense. So, how can someone get ahold of you?
Larry: They can get ahold of me. The best way to get ahold of me is through right now how leadershipactuallyworks.com, same title as the book, is gonna be probably the best place. I know we have that set up with the book and access to all the tools that we were given away free with the book. I think it also leads directly to, contact with our team. And so go that direction.
That's the easiest. That's gonna be the most direct for me. And the other thing is I will respond. Right? So my team is trained that if someone reaches out, they have a problem that they our team can't immediately address.
I see all those things. So, info I think info at seal team leaders as well would be get it's gonna come across my desk quick if there's some that someone that needs help.
Steve: I'm gonna fix this real quick, in the chat. So if your greatest challenge is overcommitment Yep. This book is amazing. Thank you. Right.
It's gonna be required reading for everyone that joins our organizations moving forward. I think it'll be busier
Larry: Yeah. I think so. Moving forward.
Steve: So, thank you so much. Appreciate everything you've done for me.
Larry: My pleasure. We're just starting too.
Steve: I know.
Larry: It's getting it's getting good now.
Steve: It's getting real good. Thank you guys for watching. I'll see you guys all next week. Shout out to Steve Train. Jump on the Steve Train.
Oh, I think you have enough time. When real estate disrupts us You started your wholesale business and you're finding success, you want to start scaling, start creating your legacy. You're looking for a blueprint. Our three day event, June 16 to June 18, teaches the blueprint for what you'll need to grow your wholesaling business. The forms, the processes, the systems, the sales, the a to z from finding sellers, and everything else in between.
Go to disruptors.com/blueprint to secure your spot. Thank you for checking out today's episode, and hope you enjoy the show.


