Thread by @Codie_Sanchez

My biggest losses of 2021 and the lessons I learned from losing 2 commas:

I had a hell of a year, made 0’s, grew to 1 million followers across platforms, bought a bunch of biz’s but I made some big mistakes, and big losses came with them.

Everyone's doing EOY lessons. I’ll share my painful ones.. bc I haven’t yet met a perfect human.

Played A Long Term Game w/ a Short Term Person

One of my deal partners was how do I say this nicely? A narcissistic d*ck.
I knew it BUT I did it anyway bc of the deal.

Had to walk away. He’ll take upside & use my name🤦‍♀️
As Naval says, “long term games w/ long term PEOPLE.”

Sunk-Cost Fallacy

When you don't stop a course of action bc you’re too deep in it, even though you should.

I did months of research on a deal. Numbers started to look off. I had that niggling feeling but kept going.

$6M deal was bad. Cost - $20k in legal + my TIME.

Didn’t Set A North Star

I’ve never done media biz’s before. That’s what I do now besides deals. Love it.

One day my hubs came in at 12am and was like what are you doing still at your desk. I was trapped in busy fallacy.

Now I have 1 goal, if task doesn’t fit, I pass.

Say the Hard Thing FIRST

12 phone calls, hours of work, shared a ton of proprietary ideas and after 90 days a company who wanted to partner with me said —>

We’ll pay you like $3-5k and we own all the IP.

Face in hands. Expectations upfront stop time wasted.

Law of the Commons

A law that states if no one owns it, no one will take care of it.

I set a team in one biz to be trendily “collaborative.”

Problem - no one did anything because everyone was in charge. That decision cost the business 100k+ before I wised up.

Generalist to Specialist Curve

When you first start a biz you do it all yourself.

Then you hire generalists.

Then generalists get replaced by/become specialists.

If you don’t move through each stage you halt your growth.
I didn't help my people specialize fast enough.

Money’s Made in What You SAVE

I preach financial literacy & yet I missed two big items in my taxes this year that will have 6 figure consequences.

I love building, kind of hate maintaining. No excuse.

Lesson: Practice what you preach or you’re a hypocrite.

20% Fail Rate

I expect fails will fall on Pareto Principle or 80/20 rule.

Funny fail. We had an investor update, “UTI’s are spreading quickly & we have investigated them.”

Cough: We meant UIT’s (unit investment trusts) but said (UTI’s aka urinary tract infections) 😂

Instinct Theory

Theory is essentially that when your gut feels a certain way you should listen.

My partner wanted to hire an operator for a biz. I immediately disliked the guy. Couldn’t put my finger on why but didn't fight it.

He ended up leaving and starting a competitor.

The Pull to Be Needed

We like to be needed as humans. I like being needed. I invested in a deal, got great terms, and they wanted my help.

Problem, if they need your help constantly probably right bet. It’s underperforming by 7 figures.

Choose Violence

Alright not literally. But conflict is a tool, you need to wield it.

I don’t like conflict. One of our operators wanted to take a personal loan from the company. I allowed it, causing resentment.

I set a bad precedent - I should have chosen conflict upfront.

I’ll think about what my greatest wins or lessons this year were and share them with you but truthfully, I learn ONE HUNDRED X from my losses.

They burn, they scar, and if you’re any good you don’t repeat them

Lots of people treat sharing losses like they do job interviews aka,

Interviewer: “What is your biggest weakness?”

Me: “I work too hard.” (insert eye roll)

Truth is EVERYONE makes mistakes, it’s ok to share them.

It’s just not ok to keep repeating them.