Entering a Founder Mindset

Cole Abbott (00:00:00 -> 00:01:14)

Founder mode part two. So in last episode right, we was more of a exploration Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and overview of founder mode, why it's a thing, why it's so popular right now. Yeah. Uh, controversies around it where people are misunderstanding it and where, uh, you know, why that is the case. Yeah. And so today we're gonna focus more on leveraging founder mode Okay. And the different modes or energies that make it up. Yeah. And, and doing that from different perspectives, different positions where you find yourself as a founder, visionary leader. So Yeah. Yeah. So I guess those different perspectives for, uh, context would be you're the founder and visionary. Yep. Current founder and visionary. Yep. You are a new visionary CEO leader, right. You did not found, did not create this. Yes. But you are now in that position. You are the new king. Yes. Uh, and then Right. You are elsewhere in the organization and want to tap into that founder mindset, right?

Mark Abbott (00:01:14 -> 00:01:15)

Yeah.

Cole Abbott (00:01:15 -> 00:01:39)

So, starting with the founder, where do we, where do you feel the typical insufficiencies or, or areas of a lack of true comprehensive understanding lie regarding founder mode? Well,

Mark Abbott (00:01:39 -> 00:02:23)

I think, God, there's, there's so much to unpack here, right? So, um, in no particular order, I, If you've never been a founder, you don't understand what it's like to be a founder. Does that make some sense? Right. So, um, you know, in some respects it's like, you know, bad metaphor here, right? But if you've never played baseball, you don't understand what it's like to play baseball. If you've never hit a ball at 90 miles per hour, you just don't have a clue for what that experience is like.

Cole Abbott (00:02:25 -> 00:02:34)

It's a little bit Play-Doh in the cave kind of a thing where you've seen it, you kind of have a fuzzy idea of what it is, but until you experience it, you don't understand it.

Mark Abbott (00:02:34 -> 00:08:34)

Yes. I mean, it, it, it, you know, the first time I encountered a 90 mile per hour fastball, right? It was like, oh my God. And I'd been playing baseball. So I was in high school, and, um, you know, it's been playing baseball since I was in third grade. And, um, that experience, I will never forget that experience. Right? And, and the irony of it all is, it was in Paris, right? And it was against the French team and, you know, of adults. And I had never seen that before. Um, in high school ball. I'd never seen a 90 mile per hour pitch. And it was just like, how do you even do this? I mean, I mean, I was the best batter on the team, and I was like, I don't, you know, <laugh>, I dunno how to hit this guy. Um, I think I did, but it was just like, it, it was scary and right. And it, it was intense. And, and, and, uh, you know, and it kind of messed with your mind. Um, and so, you know, until you, until you've been there, you don't really appreciate, um, what it's like to be a founder. You know, you don't appreciate, um, obviously so much, right? You don't appreciate what it takes to start a company, especially if you're, like, if you're doing it on your own and it's your own money, it's your own resources. Let's say you have a family, right? And they're dependent upon you to bring home, you know, money and take care of them. And, um, and so there's all of the responsibilities and pressure that's associated with being a founder, number one. Number two, um, my experience is, you know, we've talked about the five entrepreneurial archetypes. And I don't think that all five entrepreneurial archetypes necessarily have a founder's mindset, which we can get into. But, um, if you're, if you're a visionary founder and you're starting this company, 'cause you have this idea about where the world's going and how you can matter in five years or 10 years, or right. How you can build something that's exceptional. Um, a lot of those, most of those, at least based upon all the research we've done, um, have the sort of the NT temperament, you know, using Kirsty's model, the Yu Meyers model. So you're, you're, you're intuitive thinker. And so a lot of times, and this is our story, um, to this day, you know, here we are eight years in, and, um, there's stuff that I have felt strongly about from day one that to this day, I can't articulate as well as I would love to for not just our own purposes, but, you know, for the purposes of marketing and positioning and explaining things to, to the world. So, you know, part of the issue with, um, being a founder is sometimes, you know, you not only do you have all this pressure, but you're not as capable as you would like to be in terms of, uh, being able to explain why things matter a lot like brand, right? We've, this is an issue we've been dealing with from day one, right? Really helping people just inside our company understand what, why these things are so important to, to us from a brand perspective. You know, why is the ICP so important? Why is your compelling value proposition so important? Why is your compelling, why so important? Um, and you know, we always talk about the idea that, you know, whether it takes seven times or 20 times to explain stuff. It does. And now imagine it's like, it takes, you know, seven to 20 times normally when things are very explicit, coherent, resonant, but there's a lot of stuff that's not explicit, coherent, resonant. 'cause you haven't figured out the language yet, right. For explaining it. So, um, so, you know, so founders have a whole bunch of things going on. They've got tensions and anxiety and commitments, and just like their beings invested in this, bringing this idea, um, to fruition. And it's a mess. And, and partially it's a mess because that's the nature of the personality, for lack of a better expression of a lot of visionary founders as an example. And so, um, you know, this is part of why I think founders' mode is a thing. It's because sometimes it's like, you know, you get pretty worked up over something and, and as in the case with getting worked up over most things, you know, most of the time the emotion is, you know, it's, it's internal issue, right? It's like, I'm mad at me 'cause I can't explain it to you. Um, but I know it's really important and it's just like, just, you know, and you know, better now better than ever now, now more than ever, you know, just saying, you know, just do it because I say, so that doesn't work at all. It's uncool, it's unfair. We all know that. But sometimes it's like, you're just gonna have to trust me on why this is really super important for me. And that doesn't, you know, that doesn't work for everybody. And I empathize with that. Um, on the one hand, on the other hand, you're the captain of the ship. You're in the king of the kingdom. And so, um, you know, so, so that's a, there's a whole host of things that are inside of this concept, but, um, but ultimately, you know, the buck stops with you and you're trying the best you can to attract and retain all the ideal stakeholders that you are ultimately going to need in order to turn this vision into reality. And it's a mess.

Cole Abbott (00:08:35 -> 00:08:35)

So what

Mark Abbott (00:08:35 -> 00:08:38)

Would you, especially in the beginning Yeah, yeah.

Cole Abbott (00:08:38 -> 00:09:29)

That's, it's right. You're trying to survive it's chaos. Um, what would you say to visionaries, founders, the nts out there Yeah. That are struggling to, um, help their team understand where they're coming from Yeah. When they're not able to verbalize something. Yeah. Right. And, and especially in a data-driven culture. Yeah. Right. Which is very common right now. It's very practical and rational. Yeah. We have all this information, we should use it. Um, how would you recommend they approach that challenge of getting the team moving in the right direction, uh, without causing issues, right. Without being the, uh, the kid at the playground saying, I'm gonna take the ball 'cause things aren't going my way. Yeah. Without getting into that thing. And you,

Mark Abbott (00:09:30 -> 00:15:51)

So, um, obviously is no perfect answer in terms of how you ultimately start to knock down the common issues associated with starting a company and scaling, building and scaling a company. Um, so it gets down into what are the probabilities associated with certain things being more important than other things? I believe that the probability That probabilistically speaking, getting your vision reasonably articulated early on, and then test and explaining it and sharing it, and then testing it and having hypo testable hypotheses is super important, right? So that's why, you know, real early on, I believe, you know, you should, if you're thinking about starting a company, first of all, you should, you know, check and see whether or not you have the, what it takes. And so we have a, a a, an assessment coming out to help with this. But, but presuming for a second that you basically, you know, have some, if they, presuming you have some confidence that you have what it takes to sort of go and take this challenge on, right? And there's a whole bunch of things inside of that. Obviously it's, you know, you, you have the support network, maybe you have the capital, or maybe it doesn't matter 'cause you're young and you, you know, and you can live off, you know, rice and beans or whatever it is. Um, and, um, and you have, and you have a decent idea and you're excited about it, and you believe that there's a real market there, then, you know, sooner rather than later. What I would encourage, um, a founder to do is to, you know, take advantage of our Vision Builders workbook as an example, and, and start thinking about the things that matter, right? You know, who's your ICP? What's your compelling value proposition? Is the market gonna be large enough to create a company that could ultimately turn into a stage five company? Um, do you have a sense for culturally, you know, what kind of a culture you want to build? Um, you know, and sort of get, start working on the forever agreements that we've talked about a lot. Um, and then, you know, I, I think what's really interesting is, um, is, is then, you know, now who, who are you gonna surround yourselves with, right? So, and even having a sense for yourself, which we're hoping to help people do, and then having a sense for, okay, so if this is you who you are, you know, can you go and start attracting some yins to your yang? Right? Um, and, um, and figuring out what, you know, what's important at that very first stage product market fit, as an example. Um, and so, you know, getting back to personalities, if you're an nt, a lot of times what we found is, you know, I surrounded myself with a number of other nts 'cause they were willing to, they were, they were comfortable with sort of the intuitive not needing to have all the data. 'cause I can't give you all the answers right now. Right? And what, you know, what you find is early on, my experience has been, and once again, this is a great thing to research. My experience has been that the traditionalists that you start to surround yourself with the sjs as an example, um, if you don't have your act reasonably well together, it's hard for them. 'cause they're wanting to know the bits and pieces and understand everything. Um, and they want to either buy into it or not as, so they're an s right. Bits and pieces versus a big picture. And they're just, they're a j as well. So they're gonna be highly judgmental of, okay, does this make sense? Or it doesn't make sense given wherever they've come from. And, um, you know, as an example, uh, you know, an sj if you bring them in early on, when you haven't got your act together in terms of your marketing and your branding position as an example, they're probably gonna get very frustrated with it. Right? And so, you know, self and others awareness earlier on is helpful. You know, part of what you'd, what I'd encourage you to do is to, you know, depending upon, is this your first time obviously, or you know, is, you know, go out and find someone who could be a coach, who could be a mentor for you, and help you understand the earlier stages of the company and understand the dynamics associated with building a team, um, and attracting, you know, the right people for that moment in time. So first things first, I, you know, just have a decent sense for your vision. You need that to attract and retain people. Um, and then second thing is start thinking about who's really important for this moment in time. It could just be if you're a software company, it could just be some engineers to help you, you know, turn your, you know, get product market fit. Um, you know, one of the other things is, uh, you know, very early on, I, I'm a huge fan of Jason Cohen and, uh, WP Engine. And, um, you know, his perspective is, you know, you should be going out and finding 10 plus potential customers who you just, you tell them what you're building, you don't have anything for them. You just explain, if I build this, would you be seriously interested in buying this? Right? Um, I, I take it even further, it's, if I build this, not just the customer side, but would you as an investor someday, you know, if we could prove these things out, would you be interested in investing? If I build this, um, you know, would you be interested in coming on as an employee, if I build this, would you be interested in being a potential strategic partner? If I build this, you know, would you be interested in being a vendor? Right? So you kinda, you work your way through, um, the ideal stake, the stakeholder st types, right? And, and, and get a sense for things. So, you know, so early on, early, early on, right, I'd get my vision, I'd go out and do some testing without spending a heck of a lot of money. I'd do some self-awareness on whether I'm really, you know, up for and capable, you know, given where I am in my life of, of, of taking on this risk, taking on this journey. Um, and then going out and, and getting some other people to, you know, sort of make sure that you're not just like, you know, obviously smoking something funny.

Cole Abbott (00:15:53 -> 00:16:24)

Yeah. I would say from personal experience, have, working closely with an SJ can be very frustrating. Yeah. But it's usually because they're pointing out things that you're not seeing Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And they're forcing you to better understand where you're coming from so that you can make it explicit. Yeah. And I, it's, it's harder. Yeah. But you will get to where you need to be sooner and with a much better holistic understanding of the broader idea. Yeah.

Mark Abbott (00:16:25 -> 00:17:55)

Because the sjs are really interesting versus nts, right? They're, you know, in some respects, I mean, they're all, they're, they're four different things, right? The idealists versus the traditionalists versus the conceptuals versus the doers. Um, they all have, they're all, they're, they're all, in some respects, very complimentary, right? I always say it takes fingers, fielders, doers, and critics. Um, it really, you know, when you need that, you know, you know, do you go out and, and have all four immediately? Do you go out and like you just potentially mentioned, um, we're in insinuating, not insinuating it's not the right term, but implying is that, you know, is it, you know, is the, is the idealist the next person to chat with or work with? Is the sj, is it the, is it the s Is it, is it the sp you know, all of them matter. And eventually, you know, you want all, you know, you want the four of you, those four temperaments in the game together. Like I said, it's, it depends, right? I, I think if you're super, super clear, right? If you have a really strong point of view, then you're, and you're highly confident and you're willing to put your money behind it. Um, you know, I don't know if the SJ is the next one out, right? Um, I, per me, it's the sp right? Let's just, let's just get stuff out, you know, after we have our conversations, let's just get, let's just get a prototype out there and get it to get it into the marketplace. There's no right answer.

Cole Abbott (00:17:57 -> 00:18:52)

And yeah. So I guess, well, this is, this feels far off. Yeah. But what, we'll take it, go down it for a second. Yeah. Let's say you're EN you're an NTJ, because I feel like that's probably a lot. A lot. It's probably the most common one. Yeah. We are both nng n TJs. Yes. So this makes sense. Yeah. Uh, I, I feel like an sj right, from a philosophical standpoint, is a good Yeah. Is a good foil, right? Right. You're not, you don't necessarily aren't doing anything because you're, it'll, it's gonna be slower for sure. Having two j's Yes. Where it's just like, ah. Right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so let's say you are in, like, you're more in the prospecting phase of things. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you're an NTJ Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, who is the optimal foil for that, and why we're not, we're not starting, we're not doing product market fit. We're not putting anything out there. Right. Just thinking things through,

Mark Abbott (00:18:54 -> 00:19:29)

I have my biases and, and, and I, and Right. That's fine. And so I think the research would, this is an area I'd love to research. I think your gut is different than my gut, right? So, um, so I do not think the SJ is the right foil in the beginning. Um, because as you pointed out, you know, it is going to slow things down. And honestly, I don't wanna get in the bloody ar argument about it. Right. My company, I'm the visionary, right. I'm the founder. I'm putting my money here. Right?

Cole Abbott (00:19:29 -> 00:19:30)

I agree with you here.

Mark Abbott (00:19:30 -> 00:19:33)

Okay. I didn't know if you would Yeah, I, I felt you were going a different direction. No,

Cole Abbott (00:19:33 -> 00:19:35)

I was, I was trying to set it up. <laugh>. Okay.

Mark Abbott (00:19:35 -> 00:19:44)

Yeah. But, but, you know, that's me, right? That's me in founder mode, by the way. Right? That was a good example of founder mode just now, what I just shared. But, um,

Cole Abbott (00:19:44 -> 00:19:47)

In the beginning, you do need that element of speed and momentum. Yeah.

Mark Abbott (00:19:47 -> 00:20:14)

Yeah, yeah. Right? And, and, and it's like, I don't wanna debate everything yet, you know, and there's things I, I just intuitively, you know, I'm talking about me as a founder, there's things I just intuitively like, I'm making this bet, right? I believe in my perspective, I'm gonna make this bet. And, um, I want to go work on this stuff as opposed to debate this shit. That's me.

Cole Abbott (00:20:15 -> 00:20:17)

So that is who is that?

Mark Abbott (00:20:19 -> 00:20:19)

Who's what,

Cole Abbott (00:20:19 -> 00:20:21)

What, what personality? You

Mark Abbott (00:20:21 -> 00:20:22)

Didn't say. Yeah. I don't wanna debate the sj.

Cole Abbott (00:20:23 -> 00:20:26)

Yeah. Yeah. So who do you want in that situation with you?

Mark Abbott (00:20:27 -> 00:21:40)

Me, uh, I like the sp Okay. Right. Um, because they can get, just help me get stuff done and get out there and iterate and prove, um, that's me. Uh, you know, I, I would like to have an nf right? Making sure that like, you know, maybe as an advisor, um, 'cause early on, right? I had, you know, had an, had an, had NFS around me early on saying, yeah, no, this, you know, this is a great idea and people are gonna buy into this. So it is interesting whether you, you know, you lean into these people, these different types of, um, of temperaments as, you know, team members or as advisors, right. Or, you know, you know, the reality is is that when we started 90, you know, well, I'd already been thinking and working on it for a decade and right. And really getting into, okay, is this market here? Obviously, I felt, I was confident the market was here. Um, I understood who I was selling to because I had worked with over, you know, hundreds by the time we started the company. So I had a lot of, you know, confidence in and conviction around what I was trying to do.

Cole Abbott (00:21:42 -> 00:22:18)

Yeah. I mean, yeah, knowing the whole thing, it's like, well, obviously <laugh>, but Yeah. And so it's a different story. But for somebody who, I'm trying to figure out how to, how to phrase this, I think a lot of people probably in the early stages, like, I just wanna clone myself and just have that Right. And that doubles their capacity. Yeah. And that's the instinctive desire. I don't believe that's the right thing to do. I

Mark Abbott (00:22:18 -> 00:23:22)

Don't either. And I think that's an interesting thing. I mean, being a, you know, a founder, and we can talk about whether or not I was a founder at 40, 45 or 55 kind of a thing, right? But, um, in that, the idea is something that was, you know, I came about with, you know, at the age of 45. But, um, but I think, you know, earlier in your developmental journey as a leader and as a business builder, as a, you know, someone, someone who's playing in the commercial market space, um, you know, it's probable that you're more inclined to surround yourself with people who are like you. You know, as you get older, you realize there's issues with that. And so I'm, you know, I I think part of that, that clone, that tendency to cloning my instincts are decreases over time. It's, it's kind, it's a, it's a wisdom thing, right? It's an experience thing.

Cole Abbott (00:23:23 -> 00:23:26)

Yeah. And it applies to any, right. That applies to any sort of leadership. Yeah.

Mark Abbott (00:23:27 -> 00:23:28)

Yeah.

Cole Abbott (00:23:29 -> 00:23:31)

Is there anything else you want to cover on the

Mark Abbott (00:23:32 -> 00:24:11)

No, I think what's, I'm looking forward to actually talking about the next two topics. 'cause I think they'll bring, bring us back to this, you know, a more nuanced and deeper discussion around the core ideas here, right? The, you know, the, you know, the people who have founders' mindsets that are in companies. 'cause I was one of those, you know, on several occasions. Um, and, uh, and so I think that kind of helps tell part of the story here. And then of course, the, you know, you know, the people who replace a founder, you know, that's another interesting conversation. So however you want to sort of move this forward is good for me.

Cole Abbott (00:24:11 -> 00:24:49)

So I think that the commonality within all these is, those are the founder mindset, because if you have that, you have it. If you're a visionary, you probably should have that. Yeah. And if you are a founder, then you live that. Yeah. So if you, from the founder's mindset, do you think that that is a result of having certain set of traits and being a certain place in your journey? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and it should be looked at and adopted by those people, or it's a thing that is universally useful to understand for, uh, the broader range of personalities.

Mark Abbott (00:24:50 -> 00:25:26)

I think it's universally useful to understand. Um, I, I, I, you know, and this may be controversial once again, we're gonna do research on this and prove this out. Um, but I think that, you know, part of the founder's mindset is, you know, you are responsible, right? The buck stops with you. And, and, and, and, and, and I also think that the founder's mindset, and actually the founder's skill sets

Cole Abbott (00:25:27 -> 00:25:28)

Capabilities,

Mark Abbott (00:25:28 -> 00:31:00)

Right? Is if you, you know, you need to be playing a long game. So you need to be highly conscientious, right? Which is Big five Ocean, right? So you need to be high or an Enneagram, it's an eight. So you need to be highly conscientious. You own, you are responsible, right? For the, the health and wellbeing of the com, you know, of, of, of the world that you are creating, right? Um, and, and you need to be playing a long game. And that means that you don't cut corners, that you don't do things where you, um, harm your ability to create high trust relationships with, ultimately with all of your ideal stakeholders, right? So I think part of the founder's mindset is you're, you, you are highly conscientious. You take full responsibility. You are playing along, if not infinite game. You are confident that you've identified along an infinite game that's worth playing. Um, you know, how to build high trust relationships so that, you know, 'cause they're all you, you're actually playing games with all the members, all the different ideal stakeholders, right? So, you know, as you and I've talked about over the years, you know, you, you, you know, in order to play an infinite game, people need to be joining you on the game. They, you need to be invited back, right? You need for them to want to come back, right? And so, you know, so ultimately, you know, you're taking this long-term game building high trust relationships with ultimately with investors, obviously with your customers, with employees, um, and, um, and that trust is the three things. It's character, it's competency, it's connection. So you know how to, how to help you, you know, the importance of sort of honoring your words and, and being a, a trustworthy human being. You understand the importance of being competent across all these different dimensions. It's not just a product, it's leadership. It's being able to deal with adversity, right? It's, it's, it's, uh, anti fragility is extraordinarily important, in my opinion, as a part of the characteristics of a, of a good founder. Uh, back to ocean, I believe you have to be a little bit disagreeable, because not everybody's gonna agree. And if you're really all about just making sure everybody agrees with you and everybody's happy with every decision you make, you will find yourself basically, you know, you'll, you'll, you'll disintegrate. You can't make everybody happy. We all know that, right? You can't be all things to all people. Um, so, you know, part of the founder's mindset is, um, is, is conscientiousness. It's playing the long game. It's building high trust relationships. Um, I also believe that a lot of founders, um, are highly competitive. They want to win, right? You want to, you want to create this marketplace. You want to dominate, or at least be, you know, you wanna be a damn good company within that, if not a great company, if not the leader. I'm fairly, fairly competitive. So I want to be the leader. I want to do all this stuff. Um, and so, you know, I think there's a number of characteristics associated with, you know, what I'll call a damn good founders or a great founders' mindsets, right? Um, and, uh, and so I think you can identify a lot of these things through various assessments, right? Whether it's, you know, the nts for Visionary Founders as an example. We talked about big, the big five agreeableness, and, and, um, and, and, and, and, um, and, and what we haven't talked about and conscientiousness. And then the other element is, is, is creativity. You know, you'll see like, you know, Elon's obviously extraordinarily creative. He's brilliant, he's highly conscientious, and he's highly competitive. And you put those things together, and I think we've talked about this in one of the episodes a long time ago, right? I think Jordan Peterson did a really interesting take on, on, on, on Elon. He's like, look, you know, when you're in the upper, you know, one 10th of one percentile along these four dimensions, you're, you're, you're, you're one in a billion, right? So I think those are part of the founders' mindsets or mindset. Now, you know, other founders are, you know, they have some, some founders as we know, looking at Enneagram, for the most part, they're either competitive, conscientious, um, lifestyle, but those aren't, lifestyles aren't really what I'm putting into my sort of core founder, because they're really more about themselves than they are creating a great company. But lifestyle, a lot of entrepreneurs are highly, you know, sort of lifestyle oriented. And then a lot of founders are, you be to be smart. Um, and, uh, and, and, and they get that, that that's really important to them to, to be, to be smart and, um, and see things and understand things, and that's awesome. But my perspective experience has been, is that, that sometimes that they just sort of go into their own little world, and it's like really super fascinating and interesting. But there's not the commercial, there's not the focus on the commercial side of the game, or there's not the focus on the taking responsibility for everything or the, and, and, and, and the commercial side of the game. I'm mean, creating something that's highly competitive. So,

Cole Abbott (00:31:01 -> 00:31:15)

So I think that was less about the mindset from an over, from a tapping into it kind of thing. I, that's more of the founder's internal architecture, right? What makes up somebody who's gonna be a very successful founder or a successful founder? Yeah. So

Mark Abbott (00:31:15 -> 00:31:16)

I'm gonna disagree with you.

Cole Abbott (00:31:16 -> 00:31:52)

No, I'm, I'm just, I'm saying that not from the perspective. We, we started that saying, uh, right? Is this, are these traits or regarding the mindset, or is it something that anyone can tap into, right? Anyone can tap into it. So I think right, if we, when we're discussing the traits, like you have, be highly conscientious, right? Uh, low in agreeableness high, high in openness, right? We've done these research on this, but there are things there such as discipline, anti fragility growth. Yeah. Those are the things that anybody can leverage and tap into.

Mark Abbott (00:31:53 -> 00:31:58)

But see, this is the difference, right? Where, why I'm disagreeing with you, right? Not anybody can be a founder. Well, I,

Cole Abbott (00:31:59 -> 00:32:08)

I agree with that. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I'm saying anybody, because we started off saying it's valuable for anybody to understand the founder's mindset Yes. Which is different than that. Well,

Mark Abbott (00:32:08 -> 00:32:37)

No, I, so I, so once again, I'm gonna disagree with you, right? I think you need to understand that a lot of founders right, are highly conscientious. You need to understand that a lot of founders are disagreeable, right? That this is a rough moment right now where I'm showing my disagree ability, right? You need to understand that a lot of founders are highly competitive, right? And it's just like going back to, and that's, and that's part of their mindset, right? We can, we can debate whether or not this all falls under mindset for me. It does. And

Cole Abbott (00:32:38 -> 00:33:02)

It falls under the traits that individual, I think, mindset's more of like where you live in that. Yeah. And I, I think it's part of it. Yeah. And I mean, I agree with you that it's valuable to understand that, but I'm coming from the perspective of somebody who is not of those traits. Yes. What are the things that are valuable about the founder's mindset from a behavioral standpoint now from a trade standpoint, that they can leverage, adopt, and use? Does that make sense?

Mark Abbott (00:33:04 -> 00:33:10)

I, but are, are, are, I'm, I'm focused on founders right now. Right? So, so

Cole Abbott (00:33:10 -> 00:33:21)

If you don't wanna talk about that, that's how the last part started. Yeah. Yeah. So now we're gonna go into that, and I think it's useful Yeah. For people to understand what, what's going through the founder's mind, what they, what makes them, why they act the way they do. Yeah,

Mark Abbott (00:33:21 -> 00:33:25)

Exactly. Why they behave the way they behave. Why they think how, why they think the way they think. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, right?

Cole Abbott (00:33:26 -> 00:33:31)

And then what are, right, what are the traits versus what are the behaviors, right? And we kind of brought, touched on the behaviors a little bit,

Mark Abbott (00:33:32 -> 00:33:36)

But don't, but don't, the, the traits end up driving behavior.

Cole Abbott (00:33:36 -> 00:33:51)

Yes. Yeah. And the traits are somewhat malleable. Yeah. Yeah. I think neuroticism and openness are more malleable than the other ones. Yeah. Openness. We could, you could just boost that with psilocybin. That's a whole other thing. Well, yeah. Which,

Mark Abbott (00:33:51 -> 00:34:23)

Yeah. Which is, which is interesting. Right? And so you actually know a lot more about that Yeah. From a research perspective than I do. Right. But you know, as an example, um, you know, you, you can use the Johnson O'Connor Connor's aptitude test to measure creativity, right. And, uh, I think we've talked about this before, right? Yeah. And so, you know, what's interesting is, you know, aptitudes are tend to be, or supposed to be predominantly innate, can some of them be, you know,

Cole Abbott (00:34:24 -> 00:34:26)

Developed, developed

Mark Abbott (00:34:26 -> 00:34:37)

Or, you know, or whatever, un unleashed with drugs and, and things like that. Yeah. Mold instinctively, I believe they can be. Right.

Cole Abbott (00:34:37 -> 00:34:43)

And most of us would hope they can be, because we like to feel that we have more agency. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mark Abbott (00:34:43 -> 00:35:07)

Yeah. So, um, but you know, it's interesting. Like, you know, one of 'em is finger dexterity, another one's tone, another, you know, rhythm, rote memory. I, I, you know, I don't know, you know, where we are developmentally in terms of being able to supercharge, right? Basic, innate, um, um, sort of, uh, um, uh,

Cole Abbott (00:35:07 -> 00:35:08)

Characteristics.

Mark Abbott (00:35:08 -> 00:35:09)

Characteristics, right?

Cole Abbott (00:35:09 -> 00:35:40)

Are you trying to fight somebody that you shouldn't be fighting? Is this actually a battle you should be going on? Right? Yeah. Being able to discern that is very valuable. I, depending on your environment Yeah. Things like neuroticism and openness, so you can manage that. And for most people, yeah. It's probably better to lower your neuroticism, shrink that amygdala, lower your chronic stress Yeah. And, and help you have a more objective view on things. Yeah.

Mark Abbott (00:35:40 -> 00:35:40)

Yeah.

Cole Abbott (00:35:41 -> 00:36:03)

I think that's fair. Yeah. And then if you are, and if you're into, if you're in business and you are a founder Yeah. Or you're, you're doing that sort of thing, yeah. Being higher in conscientiousness Yeah. Is good. Yeah. And it is not super malleable, but acting with more discipline, taking ownership of things Yeah. Helps you move in the right direction there. Yeah. And just developing good habits. Yeah.

Mark Abbott (00:36:04 -> 00:36:06)

I mean, part of it, part of it also is, you know,

Cole Abbott (00:36:06 -> 00:36:30)

Agreeableness with the shadow integration, right? Yeah. Right. Is you just look at a lot of bad things that humans have done throughout history. Yeah. And you understand how that is why that is the case, and how people depending on their nature nurture Yeah. Can find themselves in those situations. Yes. And understanding if you were in that situation, you would be doing, you'd likely be doing those things too, statistically

Mark Abbott (00:36:31 -> 00:36:32)

Speaking. Yeah. Yeah.

Cole Abbott (00:36:32 -> 00:36:48)

And realizing that, understanding that dark, darker side of yourself and then integrating that healthily. Yeah. Right. That's a good way to lower your agreeableness if it is too high, if you are too obsequious. Yes.

Mark Abbott (00:36:49 -> 00:38:00)

Yeah. And then, and then, and then, you know, on the openness front, it's really interesting and there's so much work to be done, right. Which is why we're moving into this next stage, right. The age of understanding, so we can understand this stuff better and help people sort of be able to go after things that they're really super interested in and, um, and care about and passionate about on the openness front, in my opinion, you know, the, the higher you evolve in terms of levels of awareness, your ego, right? You go from, from in loving ringer's model, you go from four to five to six to seven, you are more open to other people, um, and other people's ways of doing things and empathetic to, to them, and willing to listen and engage and truly appreciate where they're coming from that I deeply believe. Now, openness versus creativity is a really interesting

Cole Abbott (00:38:00 -> 00:38:00)

Subrate Yeah.

Mark Abbott (00:38:01 -> 00:38:11)

Conversation, right? Because I think creativity is probably less malleable than openness in terms of being open to others and other ideas.

Cole Abbott (00:38:12 -> 00:38:41)

And it'd be interesting to see, right. When you change openness through the various methods. Yeah. What is the effect on creativity? Yeah. Because I feel like it's probably the, i I would guess there would be an effect. Yeah. Just not as significant as the holistic trait itself. Yes. Openness to experience. Yeah. Um, so if you move it 10 percentile Yeah. You maybe you're moving creativity by five. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. That's

Mark Abbott (00:38:41 -> 00:38:42)

Interesting conversation.

Cole Abbott (00:38:42 -> 00:39:42)

That'd be interesting, right? That's a whole, that a thing to work on someday. Yeah. Yeah. I don't even know if that's legal to do that research at the moment. <laugh>, spo figure it out. <laugh>. Yeah. Uh, then I did have some conversations. We just had our, uh, annual retreat Yeah. Here Yeah. And some conversations about that kind of stuff. Yeah. Uh, more around like, oh, when you're creating these things, are you just on ayahuasca? Right? Like, how, where is this coming from? Yeah. It was like, no, like, should you that sober? It's like, well, yeah, <laugh>. And I just think that's like, those things are funny. Yeah. Those conversations. Yeah. Because there are things where you just look at like what on earth, right? If you especially are very removed from that way of thinking Yeah. From a stage of development standpoint or a creativity standpoint, whatever you want to, whatever you want to attribute that to. Yeah. It is just like, what Yeah. You could look at Yeah, there's a whole that's a whole rival. We don't need to go down <laugh>. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so taking that Yep. Back right.

Mark Abbott (00:39:42 -> 00:39:42)

To founder's mindset

Cole Abbott (00:39:43 -> 00:39:55)

To the mindset. Yes. Right. There's the part of understanding the founder as a, as a character. Yes. And then there's the

Mark Abbott (00:39:56 -> 00:39:59)

Attributes of a, of a founder's mindset. Yeah.

Cole Abbott (00:39:59 -> 00:40:34)

Attributes of the mindset. And then, right. Nobody is gonna be just a hundred percent like the prototypical founder. Yeah. So it's understanding how, how much variance, like what's the difference between you and that character. Right. Um, so what would you say to somebody who is, who feels like they're a little bit different on the, or significantly different on the trait end, but still feels as though they, they are a founder, still identifies themselves that way, whether or not they've started a company. Right.

Mark Abbott (00:40:35 -> 00:45:28)

Um, Look there, you know, num I always say it, there's always exceptions to the rules, right? So let's just say whether you're talking about traits or mindset, right? That's a nice Venn diagram there, right? Um, you know, you, you never know until you go. And so, you know, I if you're, if you genuinely, deeply believe that you want to be a founder, if you genuine, and, you know, 'cause there's like, I just wanna be an entrepreneur, right? I just wanna be a founder. But, you know, do you, do you, do you have an idea, right? Are you willing, are, you know, can you go out there and get other people to, to, to buy into your idea even before you bring it to the market? Um, are you willing to sort of take on all the responsibility associated with this journey? Can you last a year or two or three? Do you have confidence the market is gonna be as big as it's gonna be? There's a lot of things right? That, um, that you should, you know, if you, you need to look into and understand. I, I, yeah, I believe, you know, if, and if you want to experiment with it and like have a night job, um, and, uh, and then sort of test it, you know, then that, you know, there, there's a lot of people who, who, who do that as well. And so, um, you know, just go into it with some sense for what the journey looks like, what it tends to take, how you match up against, statistically speaking, the characteristics that are typically associated with successful founders. Um, and then, you know, part of it, which we haven't even gotten into at all is maybe you have a lot of the ingredients, but not enough to do it on your own. And so you should go find a co-founder, right? Um, and then there's, you know, there's a version of a founder with co-founders, or there's a version of just co-founders, right? And so now it's like, you know, we're going to be equal partners, you know? And, um, and then, you know, there's a lot more I can get into there. 'cause I've seen this crash and burn way too many times, which is that you have, you know, two or three people who are like, yeah, we're gonna do this together and we're all gonna split it, you know, one third, one third. Let's say it's three people. And the next thing you know, you turn around and, and two of 'em are, you know, like not working and you're working your ass off and you just, you know, you guys didn't really do the hard work ahead of time to say, okay, so how do we make sure this is fair? Right? Very early on, how do we make sure this is fair? And, and if you start, and because we, once again, I've seen this so many times, right? If you start to bicker about this crap and, and, and, and you can't like really swiftly align on what fair looks like, um, you know, I've seen teams spend a year, right? Just pathetic, right? Just all talking about all this their own shit, rather than building the company working worrying, they're worrying about themselves. And none of them have the founder's mindset, right? They're all just like, it's, it is a game. And they're playing, they're playing business, they're playing founder. And it's embarrassing to watch sometimes. I'm being harsh right now, but, you know, but going back to this, sometimes, you know, you aren't well positioned to be able to do this on your own. So you need maybe one or two other people. But once you start doing that, you need to make sure that you guys are crystal clear on, on, you know, how you divide and conquer what fair looks like, what, how do the economics work, right? How do we judge progress? And there's a lot of things that go into all this, but, um, big picture point I'm trying to make is sometimes, you know, yeah, you could be a good co-founder, but you can't be a good founder. And, but now that becomes more complex 'cause you got two or three other people and you gotta figure out all that stuff. And trust and competency and character and, you know, and, and, and just having explicit agreements on how do we make sure this, this works for us. And, and we march down the field a little bit and check in all the time. Do we, how do we feel it's going? How do we feel it's going? How do we feel it's going? Are we capable of having really open and honest conversations around things? You know, or are, you know, or do we have, you know, different variations of, of trust and passive aggressive stuff and all this other kind of things going on. So, um, so, you know, there's more than one kind of founder. Clearly there's more than one kind of way to start and find and, and start a company, single founder, you know, co-founders, founders plus co-founders. Um, but ultimately it gets back to <laugh>. All this is just a game. Unless you really have a strong point of view about what you're building and where you're going and how you can measure progress so that you all feel good about, um, staying on the train, right. Staying in the game.

Cole Abbott (00:45:30 -> 00:45:48)

So for those going into this, yeah. Would, do you think that there's any sort of rites of passage before going to the right? You waited, not waited, but you didn't really begin to founder journey until you were 45? Well, at your earliest, but that's, but but this is,

Mark Abbott (00:45:48 -> 00:49:05)

But this is the conversation that I did want to have here, right? Which is, I had a founder's mindset Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> very early in my career, right? I questioned things, you know, I, you know, I, I went and, and, and, and, and, and took responsibility for things and took responsibility for a team. You know, within six months of me having my first real job coming outta training, I took my boss's job and I actually said this, we should be doing things this way versus another way. Um, and so I was highly conscientious. I worked my ass off. Um, I had strong points of view about the right way to do things. And, um, and then I took a lot of risks, right? Um, and, uh, in hindsight, I mean, selling drilling rigs to China in 1984 is crazy, right? Um, but, and, and, and, and, and, and having conviction that the price of oil in West Texas intermediate was gonna go from $28 to $8 a barrel. And then convincing, you know, the bank and the FDIC, 'cause the FDIC had had interest in all of this that I was right. And we should start dumping, you know, drilling rigs and oil fields and all this kind of stuff and, um, and, and related facilities. And they all, you know, I made a compelling case and started doing it, and prices started to, to decline rapidly. And, you know, I had people with huge deposits that wouldn't walk away from, and those were things that, like, I was, you know, doing things that the average banker that I was sur all the people around me, they weren't like playing an aggressive game like I was playing it. But it ended up, you know, I ended up doing amazing work, and then I got to go and help start a, another business within the bank at the ripe age of, I think I was 25 or 26, right? And once again, I went in there, had a point of view, and did all the hard work and worked my butt off and created stuff and developed positioning. And so, you know, I started showing founder mindset really early in my career. And then, you know, by the time I'm 36, I'm running a multi-billion dollar lending and investment company once again, because, you know, I had strong points of view about where the world was going, how the industry needed to evolve, how we could create like a very special competitor within the industry. And not to brag, but I've said it before, right? That business that I took over and helped develop the strategy for back in, in, in, in, in the late eighties, early nineties, is the only one to survive the, the only lever leveraged lending player to survive the eighties, period. Everybody else is gone. Uh, but that business now is over 50 billion in assets. And, um, and still a very, you know, very, very strong competitor. So, you know, so I think there are a lot of people that, within organizations who have the founder's mindset right now, I was super, super lucky in a lot of regards because, um, I don't wanna say they humored me or they tolerated me, but there were a lot of people who did not agree with me.

Cole Abbott (00:49:05 -> 00:49:13)

There's a lot of people that didn't humor you or tolerate you in that journey as well. <laugh>, I'm sorry. And there were a lot of people on your journey that did not humor you or tolerate you. Yeah.

Mark Abbott (00:49:13 -> 00:49:15)

Yeah. I've said

Cole Abbott (00:49:15 -> 00:49:16)

This before. That's part, and that's okay.

Mark Abbott (00:49:16 -> 00:49:35)

I've had four jobs, right? Where I worked for other people, and every single one of 'em either threatened to fire me or fired me because, you know, I had strong points of view and, and, uh, and if I believed in them, I didn't stand down. That's part of is that, is that a trait? Is it is a mindset.

Cole Abbott (00:49:36 -> 00:50:13)

I think that's a, it's a trait and it's, it's an expression of the trait. Yeah. I guess part of it. Yeah. Um, so obviously, yeah, these founders Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and these, these individuals can be difficult to work with. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> given that case, <laugh> given this whole thing. Yeah. Uh, so what, what would be your advice, your, uh, message to our integrators, operators second in commands Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> when it comes to working with these founders? Well,

Mark Abbott (00:50:13 -> 00:50:15)

I mean, and that's a thing that, um,

Cole Abbott (00:50:18 -> 00:50:19)

Or visionaries. Yeah.

Mark Abbott (00:50:19 -> 00:54:28)

Yeah. I, I, you know, this is why, you know, we, I I've been fascinated by, you know, assessments and traits and understanding humans for a long time. And, you know, since we, pretty much, since the day we started the company, we've been using assessments, not just, you know, to make sure we're not putting square pegs into round holes. We've used Colby since day one to really make sure that we're not asking someone to who's, you know, just like, uh, very structured, very high fact-finding oriented, very, you know, high end follow through. We're not asking them to go do, you know, sit in a seat where lots of risks exists and, um, and where a lot of experimentation needs to take place, um, where too much research is gonna get in the way of getting shit done, right? So Kolby helps make sure we're not just putting square pegs into round holes, uh, because, you know, it's a really good tool to, to sort of match up people against the basic requirements of the seat in terms of the objectives of the seats, in terms of how the seats need to be, uh, the type of work associated with the seats. So, um, so, you know, we've used that, we use the type coach, um, to give us the Meyers, um, lens, right? The, the EY lens. We use Enneagram to give us a sense for like, uh, what motivate motivates people. Um, and we do this because for a whole host of reasons, including, it just helps us talk about stuff, right? We can talk about the nature of one human and how we, you know, tend to, tend to behave, tend to act what we tend to value. Um, and so I think just better understanding ourselves and better understanding the other individual and being able to talk about it and see that it's not, you know, it's not Cole versus Mark. It's this mi really interesting mix of characteristics, um, that enables us to have healthy conversations around who we are, who the other person is, how we work well together, where we may have some friction to be lean into that and say, it's really, it's, there's not an issue here because it, I, I value you for understanding the bits and pieces as an example. If you were an an sj, I value you for helping preserve that, that we've created. I value you for questioning things if you're an idealist, right? I value you for making sure that I'm not missing the emotional component of, of, of, of, of what's going on right now. And so, you know, I think it's, you know, it's really important. Um, we talked about it a little bit earlier. If you're like talking about like a visionary versus an integrator, EOS speak or a second in command our speak or chief operating officer, it's that you, you know, you, you per, you want the power of the yin yang. You want the power of the complimentary characteristics. You wanna lean into each other's strengths. You want to have some patience with the stuff that's kind of a little bit bothersome, um, because you, it's a double-edged sword, and you know that, right? And so, um, so ultimately, you know, you know, ultimately it's about respect, right? It's about respect for one another. It's about respect for our competencies. It's, it's about respect for the moment the human's in. Um, and, um, and, and, and, and, and, and the connection side of that. It's about, you know, you, you're both excited about the game you're playing. You're both excited about serving the ICP. You're both committed to honoring your forever agreements. Um, and, um, and then you're both at peace with the fact that you're less than human. You're, I mean, you're human, you're gonna make mistakes, right? We talk about that all the time here. That 15% failure rate's actually optimal for learning. And so, you know, it's just about being open about the nature of who you, who you are as individuals and how to best work together to pursue a common, a common goal, and to talk all the time.

Cole Abbott (00:54:29 -> 00:55:06)

Communication is important. Yeah. We talk about forever agreements, and these are things that a lot of founders are going to consciously or not bring to the companies they start Yes. Or right? So if you are a visionary, new visionary coming into an organization, it's already established these forever agreements. Yeah. Trickier spot versus coming with yourself with your own understanding of things. And if that's well developed, that's great. Yeah. When you're, when you're a founder. Yeah. Um, but let's say in a company where these things are there, they're there and,

Mark Abbott (00:55:07 -> 00:55:07)

And

Cole Abbott (00:55:07 -> 00:55:07)

They're, they

Mark Abbott (00:55:07 -> 00:57:14)

Work and they work and everybody's committed to them. So what's interesting is if you have a great process around, you know, let's say I'm the visionary and now I'm gonna bring in a new visionary, and I'm literally gonna sort of exit stage left, right? Um, a great process also, first of all, the best of best worlds is that is someone within your organization who's been living these forever agreements for years and years and years and honors them. And there's no question, right? There's no question that they honor them. That's easier, right? It's, you know, the more difficult situation is when you go out to, you know, bringing someone from the outside. And now the question is, do they really, do they really, really buy into 'em? Do they really truly understand these things deep, deep down inside, um, and, and, and they're fully committed to honoring them, or is it, yeah, I hear you, but right when I get here, I'm gonna do it my own way. Right? And, you know, and maybe I Yeah, I hear you on three of these and on the fourth one, you know, I disagree, right? That's problematic. Right? And so, you know, that's, that's why, you know, we're huge believers and, you know, when we hire people, especially anyone who's more senior into the organization, we do that full top grading interview, three and a half, four hours, really understanding the human multiple meetings, talking about who we are, where we're going. We have our on 90 document that available to anybody to see online, but everybody reads it before they get deep into our process. It talks about who we are forever agreements and how important they are to us. So, you know, you should, you know, you need to have discipline around that process. It's hugely important. And, um, you know, and and part of me says, shame on you if, you know, you bring on a visionary who you don't genuinely believe honors all the things that, not just you, but your entire organization, right? Is c is committed to,

Cole Abbott (00:57:17 -> 00:57:48)

So from, there's two perspectives here. Yeah. From the exiting perspective. Yeah. Right? You are, you are the founder or you're the current visionary. Yes. And or team. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative> right. Sometimes that for whatever reason, that leader might not be involved in this process. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. What are the, what is the quick and dirty way, not way quick and dirty on vetting the incoming visionaries, right? For a federal, from a values perspective, basically.

Mark Abbott (00:57:49 -> 00:57:50)

Yeah. Um,

Cole Abbott (00:57:51 -> 00:57:57)

Well, I, the, the

Mark Abbott (00:57:57 -> 01:01:33)

Power of a chronological in-depth interview is it's four or five, you know, four hours, let's just say. Right? And what you're doing is, you know, you're, you're really understanding that, that human's career and um, and really understanding, you know, sort of not just their story, right? But the story that they Say others will share about them. Okay? So, um, you know, what we do is we wanna understand who you worked with, who you worked for, who reported to you. You know, we do the classic A, B, C, D thing. You know, would you know, do you, did you think they were an A player or B player, C player or D player? Did they think you were an A player? And then ask the questions why, and you're doing that, you know, across, you know, 10, 15, 20 years depending upon their career so far. And, um, and then ultimately you're getting the names of all those individuals who they've worked with and you know, it's called threat of reference check. And you say, Hey, by the way, you know, we reserve the right to talk to any of these people. And so, you know, you get a list of 20 or 30 people and you hear these stories, and now you go out and, and you do reference checks. And reference checks are extraordinarily important. 'cause you're basically, you come outta that process and you're like, yeah, I think this person is, they are a team player, right? They have the level of ego that we, you know, that that, that we believe is essential for them to be successful in our organization. They are resilient, right? They are inquisitive. They are a lifelong learner, as an example. Uh, they are, you know, they, they, they, all the stories they've told us is they're, you know, they're very good at, at lifelong learning and, and, and, and not just lifelong learning, but becoming better and better versions of the best version themselves. They've evolved well, right? And they're, and they're an extra mile, right? They're willing to go the extra mile. And so they've told you all these great stories, right? Because you've gotten to this point in this process. And so they, obviously, they'd love to join you and they've told you all these great stories. And now you go out and you talk to a bunch of the references and say, Hey, these are the stories we've heard. Um, these are our core values on a scale of one to 10, right? We've, we've got a lot of questions that we ask. If it didn't work out within a year, and I met you on the street, and I say, Hey, it didn't work out. Why do you think it didn't work out? And so there's a really intense process that we go through to vet people, to reduce the probability that things are different than they appear. I've been doing top grading since 1992, right? Hundreds of hundreds of executives when I don't do the process, right? I've run into failure. But if I do the process right, I'm well over 90%. Right? But our process isn't just the sort of the top grading Brad, smart Jeff, smart process, right? We're also using the other tools. We're using Colby, right? We're using the type coach. We're using the, the, the, our version of Enneagram because it tells us, this gives us this more contextualized story. And so when we're chatting with people, we, you know, we, we have a pretty damn good perspec sense whether or not, um, this is gonna be a truly a right person, right seat fit, a great right person, right seat fit. So, you know, I I, statistically speaking, you know, and I almost hate to say it, but you know, there's no question I'm, you know, I'm over 90% when I do it, right?

Cole Abbott (01:01:36 -> 01:02:01)

Flip side, yeah. You are looking to join or you're being interviewed in this whole thing. Yeah. You're looking, either you're looking or you're being brought in. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, uh, what are the things to look for as the possible new visionary Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> in an organization to make sure that it is the right place for you. Yeah. Or it's a place where you'd want to be. Yeah.

Mark Abbott (01:02:01 -> 01:02:50)

It's, it's, it is kind of the same coin, only the other side, right? In terms of, you know, now I've just talked about how we wanna make sure that, that the human is the human We think it is right now for you, it's is the company, the company you think it is, right? And so, you know, so meeting with lots of people, figuring out whether or not everybody does buy into the forever agreements fee, or whether there are any forever agreements, right? Um, you know, and, and maybe in some regards, you know, you're a visionary who, 'cause I could see myself being this way. There's like, you know, this is a decent company, but there's a bunch of stuff that it just isn't good at yet. And these are like fundamental things. So let me, like, maybe culture's not even established yet. Now

Cole Abbott (01:02:50 -> 01:02:51)

That's more opportunities,

Mark Abbott (01:02:51 -> 01:03:19)

That's opportunity, right? But there's risk too, because you're going to lose people, right? If there, if, if there's not a strong culture that's been developed and you have a strong point of view on culture, um, and you come in there, you know, there's a probability that you're gonna have some people who don't end up buying into what you believe the culture needs to be. And so you're gonna have to deal with that, right? Um, it's inevitable, really. And

Cole Abbott (01:03:19 -> 01:03:26)

It could be so disagreeable that you enjoy that. Yeah. That is a thing. Yeah. Enjoy. But you find value and meaning in cleaning it up.

Mark Abbott (01:03:27 -> 01:03:30)

Oh, well, let's be honest. I'm, I've got a warrior in me.

Cole Abbott (01:03:31 -> 01:03:39)

You know, everyone has a warrior in that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. How dominant that is Yeah. Is Right. That varies. Yeah. So,

Mark Abbott (01:03:39 -> 01:06:13)

So I'm not afraid of that battle as long as I'm, if I feel like the, like the, it's a worthy battle. It's a worthy battle. Exactly. Right. Um, so, you know, we're obviously getting into some complex stuff here, but you know, if, if, if, you know, but I, but I would say that I personally would never join a situation as the visionary where I didn't think that I had a strong point of view about where this thing could be in five to 10 years. And that the journey from here to there could be really super cool and exciting, right? Um, so, and then I'd want to vet whether or not my vision, you know, resonated with people as I was going through the process. 'cause the last thing I want to do is, you know, get there and all of a sudden it's like, yeah, I've got this great vision and this is where I want to go. And this is what I think matters. And this is where I think you guys, we could be so much better. And everybody's like, no. Like, nuh, we're, we're good the way we are. It's all working fine. Um, and, you know, you're gonna be just running into, you know, just a lot of, of, of, of politics and bullshit. Um, and, um, and in some situations, right? The board's got your back. 'cause that's a whole nother conversation. But let's just presume this is a, a board led company and you're like, look, this is what I'm gonna do. And by the way, I know there's gonna be people who are just gonna completely disagree with me, and I will do my best within x period of time, um, to, uh, to get them to, to, to get us all to align. But if we don't align, you need to understand that I'm, I am going to be firing people. So, you know, and, and, and I need your, you know, I, I and I personally, I would put it in writing and I'd get their signatures on this is how important it's to me, right? But let's just say for the sake of this conversation that we've got this, they, they think there's, the head of sales is amazing, but the head of sales is completely antithetical to what you want to do. I'm like, you know, I want to know right now, you know, if I can't get Joe or Jane or whatever to, you know, to come on over and, and, and, and get on this wild and wonderful crazy train that I've, I have the ability to fire them. Right? Um, and as this, as a visionary, you need to be able to have that, have, have, have that, have that capability. Second command's a different story. But, but you need to be able to have that, that ability, because otherwise you, you do not have the power you need to lead.

Cole Abbott (01:06:15 -> 01:06:38)

Alright. To wrap up and build on that. Yeah. What would you say the right, right. In abbreviated version, like two minutes or less, what would you say the red flags are when entering a new organization that pop up? You're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. There's not, this is not a risk that presents opportunity. This is not a fun thing. This is like danger.

Mark Abbott (01:06:38 -> 01:08:34)

Yeah. Um, A board that has its own political crap going on, right? So, you know, you, you go in and, you know, the board has a variety of different personalities. They're not aligned. There are a bunch of different agendas that are going on there, right? That's, that's a big red flag, right? Um, you not being able to a, a a, a founder visionary who's not gonna, you know, give the reins to you, right? Um, they're gonna stay on and basically be involved and, and they're gonna question everything. And they've got much more authority and, and, and credibility than you do. 'cause you're the new bloody person. So that's another clear issue. Obviously if, you know, if you don't think the economic model of the it is, is obvious, if you don't think the market is obvious, if you don't think the forever agreements makes sense and you can't change them, right? There's a bunch of stuff that you want to go through. If the culture's a mess, the market's a mess. Um, the board's a mess. I mean, there's a bunch of things, unfortunately. Look, if this were easy, right? It's not. So, you know, so you gotta go through there. I, you know, I have my own lens of things that I would, filters, whatever, that I would look at everything through. And, um, and then, you know, you, you end up with this degree of difficulty associated with, you know, with winning, right? With getting it to a place where you're super, um, stoked to be the leader where you're totally comfortable taking on the burden of being the visionary.

Cole Abbott (01:08:36 -> 01:09:02)

If you are. Another quick question. Yeah. If you are a founder and you're not the visionary for certain reasons, a lot of people start companies young and then Right? They're not the best person to lead that Yeah. Company. How do you deal with that? That tension of being the founder of this being your baby? Yeah. But you're not the one at the top driving the big decisions.

Mark Abbott (01:09:03 -> 01:09:06)

Well, if you're, if you're, if you're the founder and you're not the visionary,

Cole Abbott (01:09:07 -> 01:09:17)

Or not the visionary yet at the mo very, very weird case. Yeah. It's a weird case, but it is. There are a lot of examples of this.

Mark Abbott (01:09:17 -> 01:09:24)

Well then, you know, I would go back to, it's hard, right? So you founded a company where you don't have a vision, right? That's, or

Cole Abbott (01:09:24 -> 01:09:51)

You, you do have the vision, right? You establish a vision, but you're not the one running the company. Whether it's because you, you have a lot of companies and you're someone, right? You're a entrepreneur, right? You have a bunch of companies that you've started like this, I need this thing. I'm not gonna be one to run it. And you, you're gonna take a step back, right? And you're basically working for the person that you've hired, whether it's that or it's just you're at the moment, you're not the right person to be running this thing. And you have that level of awareness where you can make that judgment. Yeah.

Mark Abbott (01:09:52 -> 01:14:43)

So there's a bunch of different use cases there, right? So let's just, um, let's, yeah, I mentioned Jason Cohen earlier, right? So he's the founder of WP Engine, but you know, he got to the point where he is like, I don't want to be this person anymore. And, and so he went and found a woman to be the CEO and he's now, I think he's the CTPO or the CTO, right? Um, and he's very much loves it, right? He loves her owning all those things that the CEO owns, and he loves owning the things that he loves. I'm sure there are. They're aligned on the for forever agreements, right? Basically. Right. And, um, and, and so, you know, he's at peace with not being the CEO, right? That's, and he, he, and based upon everything I've read, and I, you know, I'm confident like peace's super at peace with that. So ultimately you have to find, you know, you have to find that, define that relationship. So, so it's one that's healthy right now, you know, the idea that the, you know, founders working for a new CEO like Jason does, that's not normal, right? It doesn't happen all, but it does happen. And, um, and so, you know, and, and I'm, I'm confident Jason went and found her and, well, I don't know the story, uh, whether she was inside the company or he recruited her, but, you know, he made sure that he found someone who he would love to support in your using the terms you used. And finally, yeah. What are the key components of the founder mindset? Um, genuinely owning the position of being the leader, of being responsible, of having the vision, of keeping people excited and focused and being at peace with the fact that things, and you and I have talked about this a lot, being at peace with the fact that, you know, we are, where we are learning the lessons we need to need to learn, um, uh, the sort of having the anti-fragile, we're gonna learn from this moment. Um, you know, it's the vision, it's the temperament, it's the dedication, it's the owning all the issues. Genuinely not, not, not just saying it 'cause people say it, but it's genuinely deepened out. You know, it's everything. Every issue is, you know, you're responsible for, you created, you hired them, right? And, um, and, and, and, and, and, and being at peace with the moment you're in, being at peace with the mess you've created. Having a sense that you're surrounding yourselves with people that can help you take things to the next level. Just owning, owning the journey, owning the destination, owning the energy. Um, and, um, and then owning, Creating a culture that Attracts and retains highly competent people. People that are great, right? People, right seats. And that ultimately owning that you are the one who needs to be working constantly on not just creating high trust relationships, but maintaining high trust relationships with all of your ideal stakeholders. And that means you also own defining what it means, what your ideal stakeholders are, who they look like, who you are. So there's a lot that goes into it, but ultimately it's like the buck stops with you, right? And, and, you know, we can go into rabbit holes on this, but it's, but recognizing that, you know, if you go to the king archetype, right? There's moments where you need to be the warrior. There's moments where you need to be the philosopher, right? There's moments where you are the magician. Sometimes you are the magician because you are literally the innovator, but of, of a product and their service. But you're really the innovator of a company, right? You're creating this thing that, that hopefully has this, you know, potentially infinite journey in front of it, right? And then owning that, you know, in order for you to attract and retain people every now and then, you gotta stand back and you gotta be the lover. Which means helping people appreciate the moment they're in. Appreciate. Like, we just had our retreat. Appreciate being in the mountains. Appreciate one another. Um, appreciate the absurdity of certain moments. Um, um, just, uh, you know, creating a super healthy environment where people are focused, aligned, and thriving

Speaker 6 (01:14:44 -> 01:14:44)

Is

Cole Abbott (01:14:47 -> 01:14:50)

All right, <laugh>. Thank you. You're welcome.