I had a problem…
Summary
- Always stay calm and logical, especially during a crisis; emotional responses won't solve problems.
- Have a personal checklist ready for important events, but accept that not everything is controllable.
- Prioritize communication and expect it from your team; poor communication can escalate issues.
- Anticipate heavy traffic or high stress during launches and ensure key personnel are available.
- Leverage trusted colleagues or friends like Trevor, who can help you work through decisions with their logical perspectives.
- When you notice incompetence, address it early to avoid bigger issues later.
- Make quick, informed decisions without waiting for your feelings to align with the situation.
- Balance emotion and logic, don't ignore intuition but follow tangible evidence.
- Even if events and big decisions like property purchases overlap, they won't occur simultaneously, which can help manage stress.
- Having supportive family or friends like my father around during stressful times can be incredibly grounding and helpful.
- Take charge and be willing to make tough decisions, like accessing necessary accounts, when critical deadlines approach.
- Be ready to pivot and find solutions on short notice by utilizing your network for support.
- Understand that every leader faces unknowns; accept your inexperience and use it as a catalyst to learn and become more resourceful.
- Don't rush to resolve issues out of discomfort; hasty decisions can have negative consequences on your business.
- Embrace ambiguity and be flexible; confidence in your resourcefulness is key to finding solutions.
Video
How To Take Action
I would suggest implementing a few simple strategies when you're faced with a difficult situation. First, always stay calm and use logic to solve problems. Emotions don't help when you need to make clear decisions.
Make sure you have a checklist for big events, but keep in mind not everything will go as planned. That's okay! Learn to be flexible and deal with problems as they come.
Communication is super important. Talk with your team and make sure they talk to you, especially when things get tough. Bad communication can make problems worse.
Expect things to get crazy sometimes, like during a product launch. Make sure all your key people are ready to help when you know you'll be busy.
It's good to have friends or coworkers you trust, like Trevor, to talk through decisions. This helps you stay logical when you're emotional.
If someone isn't doing a good job, talk to them early. Don't let small issues turn into big problems.
Make decisions fast when you need to, but don't just wait for your feelings to feel right. Look at what you know and trust that.
Remember, you won't have two big things happen at the exact same time, usually. So, don't stress too much about doing everything at once. You can handle it step by step.
During stressful times, family and friends who support you can really help. They can make you feel calm, like how my dad helps me.
If you have a deadline, be ready to do whatever it takes to meet it. This could mean making tough choices or asking for help.
If you don't know what to do, that's okay. Everyone has to start somewhere. Use it as a chance to learn and get better at solving problems.
And don't rush to fix things just because you're worried. Quick fixes might not be good for your business in the long run. Take your time to find the best solution.
Lastly, it's okay to not have all the answers. Being unsure can make you look for new ideas and be really resourceful. Have confidence in your ability to figure things out!
Quotes by Leila Hormozi
"You can't control everything"
– Leila Hormozi
"You don't know what you're doing, you've never run a business before"
– Leila Hormozi
"Follow the evidence, not your feelings"
– Leila Hormozi
"Don't expect yourself to feel good and don't punish yourself for feeling bad"
– Leila Hormozi
"The only way that you ever get certainty is by going through the situation being uncertain the first time"
– Leila Hormozi
Full Transcript
kidding you did not think it was a problem until he saw my face it's never good it's always just like shit's on fire in this episode it is about a week before the book launch and I have to solve quite a few problems can you tell Alex we're getting on the book launch meeting thanks I am about to get on a meeting let's just start then and receive really bad news it's in two days tomorrow we have the rehearsal do we need to make like a little checklist for tomorrow and for day of I mean I have my own personal checklist you can't control everything there's been multiple attempts to contact the person and there's been no answer oh [ __ ] one second I'm coming back the guy who owns the access to their backup storage case anything goes wrong we were like we have this whole plan now when we need to do the backup store he's not responding I found out for the first time that the lead developer who had put together our site actually was going on vacation from that Tuesday through Sunday or Monday after the launch they said Shopify support again let us know I like don't know what to do I think my immediate response when I got the news that the person who had built it wasn't going to be there I felt angry it's so hard for me because I just see like such terrible communication you know up until the launch we're just building the site there's no traffic hitting it but then the day of the launch is when we're expecting a hundred thousand five hundred thousand people to hit the page in one day I don't know yes it's a weird day honestly that's literally the most important time to have the person who built the site on call it's nice Trevor will be here I like wanna have him home oh hey so Trevor Dr cashy he's basically like family and nobody knows it actually happens people that just buy stuff and it appears and they actually know anything about what they get or how did they got it not really he's like my sounding board he helps me think through a lot of decisions and scenarios all right Trevor's here oh cool Trevor AKA Dr kashy is uh closest thing to a brother to me he's coming he was just there for support fantastic I mean he was just as big of a part of the book as I was I was just more public about it no matter just as much as him as it did to me okay okay so so like how do you respond to them no no so the reason that Trevor was here right now is because he's basically co-written the book with Alex Trevor is such a good person to have when this all went wrong because he's so skilled at helping logically talk through decisions he's just smart as [ __ ] I should have known because in the beginning like when I came into the book project I met with the boss and I said I don't feel like this person is competent to do this and then he said if we were not so far in I might agree with you and I was like why on Earth would you have taken the job and so having him there and being able to like walk him through these issues he is a fantastic thought partner in making decisions quickly when needed he did not think it was a problem until he saw my face and then was like no no no yeah but a fireball it fits on all that counts I think that the biggest impact that Trevor has had on me has been learning to be more logical rather than emotional I just want to get it done yeah he's all about you know follow the evidence not your feelings because feelings are fleeting but evidence is Everlasting I'm trying not to be mad at them every time we're talking it's really tough the advice I would give any business owner or CEO going through any unexpected event or crisis is that don't expect yourself to feel good and don't punish yourself for feeling bad I just this whole thing I'm just we don't have time to wait on our feelings to change we just have to go act despite them I also knew that I was going to figure something out and I have the resources to do so and I'm resourceful enough to figure that out yeah and after and after the book launch did you oh my God you need to approve the office signing so in the middle of all this I realized that we had to finish the contract for the new office so we could actually get it I mean I think we just go in with a strong offer see if we can get it I think there was a lot that went into the office things can always fall through in a deal at least give it our best shot the strong offer in this scenario would be if we were to do anything else then all we're doing is playing a game and the risk we run is that that other person's reel and they execute and we're up I wanted a big office for a few reasons one of them is I like having a massive commercial gym we can do some really good lighting yeah it looked like skylights they do and it's become increasingly difficult for me to work out without being interrupted at a public gym that's become increasingly important to me because I like training hard I wanted to create space for a portfolio company so that we could hold events for them or so that they could also host events for their customers I think I actually want a smaller office but then Alex said he really wanted a gym and more space what do you mean what do I think about it I tend to be like oh my God I don't want to take too much space if we don't need it we don't do that right now [ __ ] happens my level of like shock around things happening is you know continually lower and lower over time I think if we wanted to do it we could accommodate it but the stuff we're doing right now we're still gonna have plenty of empty space we toyed around with that like kind of going back and forth on it for a while which probably came out and why it took so long sorry I generally didn't know what you meant I did not perceive that as punishment I did not mean to be punishment so neither of us are right or wrong we just like probably balance each other in that way but it felt like it was incredibly important to him and have an office that he felt like really really really proud of when we saw this building I was like I know that this is exactly what he wants and I'm not gonna die on that sword you told me two years ago don't find anything on my behalf without telling me and I'm fine with it just say it yourself in the Alex request thread approved yeah I think everyone always puts Alex as a primary signer on everything because they think that putting me is disrespectful to him or I asked if they could put it in my name and again what did the lawyers do they always could and still The Undefeated champion of signing documents homeboy doesn't want to [ __ ] sign these papers so people need to start putting in my name it's like the band of my [ __ ] existence I'm like when the [ __ ] is this gonna end it's ridiculous also to be clear we are 50 50 on everything so the fact that they have him signed it's not like I have less rights it's just the inconvenience of signing about me her the primary signer Layla is CEO because she is CEO a lot of people see this inside of like respect totally and I get it Layla and I are very much yin and yang both elements are required if it were just me this company would not run nearly as well as it does I've had like livid conversations I'm like listen like this is the third time that I've had to email and tell you that it's not him that signs I will always get a disproportionate amount of the credit because I'm relatively well spoken and I'm a guy like he doesn't even [ __ ] check his email he doesn't even check his [ __ ] slack half the time okay if you want him to sign so he's gonna take three days a lot of times things feel overwhelming because like one day happens where a lot of things happen in one day I think that in terms of managing the stress of knowing that we have this huge launch in a couple of days and also knowing that I'm about to open up this huge can of worms with purchasing a very large building how much how long was the process I mean in total like 14 months I'm just like we've not gotten this far dude this has been freaking awful this week I try to just remind myself in those moments that though a lot of the pre-event work is happening at the same time the events are not going to occur at the same time you know the book launches soon to be over and so that does open up room on the team to help with a new project [Music] I was like we start talking you know I think that my dad helps me with stressful situations in the way that he's just such a good listener some people might be like wow it's overwhelming to have your parents come in when these things are happening but it's not for me because he's such an amazing supportive father that it actually helps me more than anything he says well good time someone else might need to take the parents of this oh so my dad manages all the book operations you know obviously I think because he's my dad he definitely puts a lot of discretionary effort into what he's doing and he works super freaking hard he didn't make anybody else the owner of the store and he's also not responding and so we need someone else to be able to do things and nobody can so his boss was telling me this and I was like so what are you gonna do my dad just has endlessly and tirelessly believed in me and he's like oh you're gonna figure it out he just won't log into email which has access to Shopify and so now I have a message him privately we couldn't log in as an admin to the store to allow somebody else to get into the code because the guy who built the site put it just in his name so not even Alex or I have access to the backup store yeah I'll follow up with them the person that had the ability to get into that person's email I don't think wanted to do that at first which I see the point of I also think that given the situation it is the best decision to do that I said is there a reason why you wouldn't log into his email if you own the email to go do this because we are in the last 24 hours you can do anything so in situations like that when things happen that are unexpected I'm not going to go into the blame game I'm going to go into action mode it was just a Savage as soon as I know she has it then she has it our lawyer just didn't respond we'll just ping her again and if not I have somebody else that we can get one from this interesting you guys don't get sued [ __ ] Alex I'm like I would never log into someone's email unless it was do or die I considered that do or die and so I was trying to communicate that to this person he said sorry for the miscommunication I will just go do it now I was like there was no miss you just told me you didn't want to do it if Layla's in charge of something then it will work no no not at all oh I'll say it's not our fault it is our problem from an Ethics standpoint you say we accepted a job out of our scope sorry with your time it would only be upsetting if it was unexpected I didn't expect this but I expected something and then I was like I'm sorry I don't understand why you wouldn't do this immediately given we have 24 hours left to put this together and it's under doctor's email and we have no idea when he's going to respond that makes no sense to me can you help me understand I have a large Network as is my team let's all put feelers out for a person who could jump in Go full on sniper mode and then I sorted through all the people that they had given me and then I prioritized calls with those people but it's something I brought up yesterday going into driver's email to go change the logins and then give them I know that like being angry in a situation is not going to help anything I know that nobody has done anything on purpose but intention doesn't always equal impact in business I'm all set on the primary store we should be good to go thank you so much got it done we found somebody who can come in and they can just deploy all the resources to get what we need to get done and by the end of the day we were kicking off the project amazing we almost start working on the back back up Sir she is CEO because she's the chief executive officer she's the one who's executing and making a lot of the decisions thank you so much guys we gotta give a little a little this you came in last minute sniper style saving the day thank you yeah so that person came in and then they gave us a lot of insight into what was going on they were very good with communication and then they helped to get everything shored up so that the site was ready to go for the amount of volume we were anticipating let's go walk got a loop when everything is on the line and you're five days out from a launch like where decisions are unresolved where situations have not come to a conclusion and I think I see a lot of people ruin their businesses or really distract the whole team because they feel a sense of discomfort with that and they want to resolve it quickly and therefore they overcompensate with their actions hey we got it signed in their hands so signatures it feels great to have gotten the Shopify issue figured out and to have signed the contract for the building simultaneously someone that's helped us to try and find a building for until now wonderful great job you know what it all came together and we found the right one the advice I would give any first time leaders it is really hard to prevent fires because it's unknown you don't know what you're doing you've never run a business before you're probably hiring people to have a run of business before and so there's just so many unknowns that it's like you're going to buy consequence of just like being new in an experienced and I think that if you just accept that you don't know things and you don't know how things are going to turn out and that's okay and the only way that you ever get certainty is by going through the situation being uncertain the first time I think I'm very comfortable in ambiguity and a lot of people aren't so it's like it wasn't all figured out but I'm like I'll figure it out you know like I'm resourceful and I think I think be resourceful is a skill you know but Layla is an expert leader and she is I think the reason that we have you know what we have today