Meet the Team Behind Alex and Leila Hormozi (FULL BEHIND THE SCENES)

Summary

• As a leader, it is essential to create a culture of positive reinforcement rather than one driven by punishment or fear.
• Building a positive environment can lead to a high-performing team that is excited about their work.
• Personally, I have learned the importance of strong leadership through my experiences with good and bad managers.
• For instance, in my early career, clear communication and positive reinforcement from a leader named Mike at 24-Hour Fitness led to a much more enjoyable job experience as opposed to a successor who ruled through intimidation.
• During team meetups, like the one we held in Las Vegas, I focus on reinforcing our culture and values, which includes discussions about the impact of praise over punishment.
• I've discovered that both punishment and positive reinforcement can work, but it's important to consider the type of environment and outcomes you want to achieve.
• I aim to provide insights into the behind-the-scenes workings of a high performing team, showcasing the genuine camaraderie.
• It is essential to live the values you want to instill in your organization by setting an example yourself.
• In terms of recruitment, seeking complementary skills rather than duplicating existing ones is beneficial to building a robust team. Think of it like a star with points fitting perfectly together.
• I've learned the importance of transparency, collaboration, honesty, and maintaining a fun work environment.
• Surround yourself with people who are invested in improvements and willing to learn new things; this can lead to greater success.
• Create an environment where everyone's skills and talents are appreciated and acknowledged.
• Recognition in the workplace, especially recognizing the efforts of every individual, plays a vital role in creating a positive work environment.
• Encourage your team to form strong relationships and communicate effectively to foster a supportive atmosphere.
• At our team meetups, we encourage the sharing of knowledge among team members and reinforce our values, considering this fundamental for our collective success.

Video

How To Take Action

A good way of doing things is to start with building a positive team culture. Focus on giving good words and actions to your team instead of scaring them. This helps everyone do a good job and enjoy their work more.

To have a strong team, you should lead by being a good example. Show the values you want your team to have like being honest, working well with others, and keeping things fun.

When you’re adding people to your team, look for those with different skills. Think of your team like a puzzle where each person’s strengths fit well with the others.

Always be clear with what you need from your team. Use praise to encourage them. This makes each person feel important and helps them do a good job.

Make sure your team talks a lot and trusts each other. This helps everyone work better together. At team meetings, share stories about how being nice and supportive is better than being mean.

Remember, it's not just about what jobs people can do, but also how they fit with the team. Your team should have a mix of skills and they should all agree with what the team believes in. It’s like picking players for a sports team.

It’s important to show that you see how hard everyone works. Say thank you and tell them you notice what they do. This makes a happy place to work.

Finally, always be ready to learn and improve. This means you and your team can grow together and be successful.

Quotes by Leila Hormozi

"I think a lot of people view personal branding as talking about things rather than doing things that form the opinions that others have of your brand"

– Leila Hormozi

"If you want career growth, you almost need reputational growth through your brand growth in the company"

– Leila Hormozi

"If you want to be a leader, start acting like a leader and you get that brand, and then you will get a position"

– Leila Hormozi

"70% of hard conversations are really self-awareness"

– Leila Hormozi

"The later it is, the more specific it has to be; the sooner it is, the more general it can be"

– Leila Hormozi

Full Transcript

we have to give it our all because like the whole team's here if they're getting us a leader like you leading them like they're Amplified I get so nervous before these things what can we do here to help build that culture of positive reinforcement it's like you get like frozen I know I've been I'm reinforce our culture and values we're having our first full acquisition. comom team meet up here in Las Vegas so over the next few days we're going to be talking about the vision for the culture of the company and I thought it'd be super cool if we could record the behind the scenes so we have me and then we have Alex and then a break is that how it's you guys could see what it's actually like I think what I'm most excited for people to see from this team Meetup is just what it really feels like to have a high performing team so if you're interested in working at acquisition. comom you've ever looked at our careers website or if you subscribed to mosy Talent this is kind of what it looks like on the other side so I felt like it would be really valuable to give people insight into that I've never been a part of an environment like this where people are genuinely rooting each other on yeah being a remote company I love that we we actually have events like this we can actually step back meet each other in person put faces and personalities to names my name is Tobias alen I am the director of marketing here at acquisition so I think one of the things that Alex and Ila have done for reinforcing both the values and creating a culture that people are excited to be a part of is actually living the values next speaker all right you guys will notice that Jason and Trevor are filming so we are filming the next two days now they are primarily filming myself and Alex they were going to ask some of you if you want to add to the film in discussing with the team we all felt like it would be so cool to show what it's like when the team comes together and I think a lot of people they assumed like we ruled with fear it's actually quite the opposite of that I think that we've created this environment where people are high performing because they love what they do not because they're scared of the consequences of if they don't do the job that's why I really wanted to display this in the Vlog is I just felt like it's invaluable for people to see it because I think it's one thing to say what you do but it's another thing to show it to people so I'll tell you guys a story my first job out of college was 24-Hour Fitness what I didn't realize was that when I got to for our fitness I actually ended up with one of the best leaders that I could have asked for his name is Mike in hindsight the reason that that job was so enjoyable you know he had very clear communication he always did one-on ones and took time to see like how do I feel what's my development like like so then they actually asked Mike to go open a new location you know you've got not Mike coming to take over and I will never forget the first meeting and he sat us down and I've never heard someone say so many times in my life he was like you young listen up cuz here not doing any more of this okay we're going to we're going to get our numbers up and we're all like our numbers are up you know like the things he was saying made no sense he just continued to swear at us yell at us it was the first meeting I was just like holy crap who's this guy it was just complete polar opposite I remember when we started gym launch you know years later I kept thinking to myself like I know what a difference it is to have an absolutely horrible boss and leader and or no leader right and then to have one that is you know truly investing in people praising people encouraging people because I experienced it firstand like the three words that I I remember feeling is like confused unhappy and anxious like constantly in a state of anxiety and it's crazy to me to think that just the person that leads an organization or even leads a department can create that for everybody else on the team does anyone want to take a guess at what the difference was between Mike and not Mike Mike praise not Mike hey yes so so Mike used positive reinforcement to get people to do stuff to put it simply right not Mike used punishment to get people to do stuff taking those Concepts what can we do here to help build that culture of positive reinforcement that's really what I wanted everyone to be able to walk away with and the reason I wanted to relay this information is because it's not something one person can do alone I wanted to discuss the topic of Praise over punishment at the team meet up because it's something that I personally study a lot I ment a lot like given where we're at as a company you know we're only like 2 years in it's not like I have leisurely time to invest in teaching these things to the team and so I wanted to make the time by putting together this team Meetup where we can focus on a lot more of the internal infrastructure and because on the subject of positive reinforcement this guy is positive reinforcement like being around him is like makes you just feel so good and just excited to be I think alive in a world that is very judgmental you are not that and you're amazing I think one of my biggest takeaways was that there's a a punishment style of management and a a positive reinforcement sty of man and both of those can work but you just have to think about where your priorities are and I think it was powerful to hear that from uh I want to introduce Neil uh Neil took a big step this year and moved in with his girlfriend originally didn't understand the assignment we were talking about our greatest accomplishments in our life so L learn more about that I can tell you later but so we quickly were passing each other notes on what our actual accomplishments were this year I was like Frank how many people did you hire this year so I had a number that I thought was any what have me guess 12 he four 12 25 hell yeah when I joined the team was Alex Leila Suzanne and Yasmine but quickly the team has grown I mean our first in-person meeting was the whole company because it was just five of us so I'm introducing Tyler and his big win this here is he got H Alex had a book La I would say that one of the core skill sets that every business that I've ever built has been recruiting I don't really see another resource that's more valuable to pour into than having the right people on the team iuce she yeah she I'm happy to introduce myself look around this is my accomplishment this year how we go about finding Perfect People is that in other hiring processes people don't share those there's a lot that's left unset and then that's where maybe the expectations aren't even always clear what I've tried to do very differently is say it and put it all out on the table everything for me connects back to the requirements of what we're looking for and so some of the stuff that we'll ask the hiring managers think about the prevalent skills on the team we don't want to hire another Trevor we want to hire someone who compliments Trevor so perfectly some hiring managers are a lot better at it than others and that's where Caleb's superpower he comes in having really thought through all of that I'm going to cry probably just a side not but uh Alex I love you man uh the way that you have created an ability to rethink through emotion and uh situations it's been really impactful for me the way that I analyze situations when I'm struggling or feeling like I'm succeeding either way I look at it completely differently and then Lea I don't mean this in the cringy cliche term I mean like I feel seen by you for some weird reason when I'm having a little bit of a day you somehow seem to like up and just the way that you have again given me permission to be like it's okay to have a shitty day and you can still do no what nobody knows is that every media team that I've ever seen there's no organization or it's like complete and there's no creativity and you have found the way to bridge both together having never done it before just the fact that you you care about everybody on the team and you care about the brand and achieving the goals and I think that your ability to hold all of those three priorities equally is what makes you so great at what you do and it's why everyone just loves working I think that the way that Alex and Ila interact with everybody on the team is incredible the fact that Lea takes the time to reach out to every single editor edor you know every writer uh a designer whatever that that is incredible and pretty unique um compared to a lot of work scenarios and as the brand has grown as acquisition. comom has grown Alex and ilila really prioritize the media team rather than just like the weird animal in the corner that makes the videos kind of thing the request that was made of me was to talk about branding everyone who comes in contact with our content doesn't know who we are and so what we're doing is the thing that hope they should know something about so if you didn't know what the Nike Swoosh was and I were to continue toir and Associate it then eventually I could eliminate all these and just have the logo and you would feel the same way about it all we are doing with everything that we do from a randing perspective is we take us and we associate with something I can say it's kind of like this which we both know and then I can make the comparison and if you're like wow that sounds a l like teaching that's a lot of what branding is well brands are so powerful then how do we grow Brands if you have to label some of the associations that the brand currently has for us yes they brand and the information that they give out whether it's the books or that content is what creates the demand for partnership with us but the businesses we take on we have an extreme amount of influence in fact the reason they want to partner with us is the influence that we have on their business when I think of the brand of acquisition. I want it to be known for two things I think one is operationalizing excellence and on the other side I think platform to elevate others when you work with acquisition. comom like you will always be better than when you came in if you're going to put the three words on the wall for you and you're standing up here what would the three words it's our personal okay okay so after Alex's presentation we went into this activity around personal brand which was we're all asked to write down three things that we would use to describe ourselves and then as we picked the different things that described one another we have to guess who wrote that about themselves play pickle ball fam Polo's shirt I am obsessed with the number three oh my God that was so fast dad dad this being CRA you know you know hiring you can't have five of the same person on a team I always see skills as like this pointy star you know and it could and some stars have more points than others but there's always a valley in between two points and so the ideal person on the team's points fits in those valleys and so then they just all start sort of like connecting together like across the it's like I'm like wow we have really good it's cool one of the biggest things is for me is culture simple things like trans transparency collaboration honesty and just like having fun at work that was what uh what drove me to come here how do you take this philosophy down to the managing of the portfolio I think there's a lot of parts of our portfolio that are still working on the leadership aspect success is is not about the mechanics it's about what you're doing but about like the way you're leading people and the the people that you surround yourself with if you have a great group of people you can be really successful I think a lot of people look at their business as let me just get whoever agrees to the role whereas I've always looked at it like an NFL draft which is like who do I need to draft what kind of skills do they have what are their values that's always been a core focus of mine because who is the one that is making the vision come to life at the end of the day it's not you it's your team all right who's hooking up the music got a good [Music] playlist [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so one of my favorite parts of the Meetup was actually we took a party bus and then went to go act [Music] throwing dad help me it was cool to see how incredibly awful some people were like myself and how incred talented others were like my dad your dad's really good at this like [Music] feels great really feels like every and everyone also like wants to be here right yeah yeah actually people are enjoying it they want to be here they I know they're engaging with enthusiasm I don't get the intera Tyler every day N I haven't talked to n since you joined the yeah so like some of the most I think the most meaningful interaction like getting to know them they they're like so interested do side I'm also soed in what they do media side so but it's really cool cuz like I feel like both teams do what they do so well you were like the easiest person to interview with really yeah even though I was like nervous was like dude I'm meeting the CEO like I was nervous I'm so nervous I remember thinking to myself that was a terrible interview and I was like and she cares and the fact that you cared that much I was like she is the kind of person I want to work with and it was so interesting because it's like I think all that about like how well people interview is such a because I was like I could just tell I didn't realize that a lot of these people had met each other yeah some these I have seen like this much off we have another day tomorrow do you have talks Neil Caleb Sheila Ben so they all have presentations I'm actually really excited if people trust each other they'll communicate better if people like each other they'll work better together you know some people might look at this and be like that's so soft what a waste of money I think that's because if you look at like what correlates with the highest performing teams it's not intelligence and it's not skill of an individual member of the team it's actually communication of the sum of the parts yeah we got the watermelon we got the potatoes and we got the eggs Leila asked me to build out the team meet up I was really nervous he was like okay don't worry it's going to be fine no matter what what it was Pitch to me was like we're basically going to acknowledge people who were voted to stand out in terms of like one of these core values that we have I want to ask Justin Paul Frank and Tyler to stand up for a second and let us recognize you gentlemen have all demonstrated areas values of ours but before I get into the ones that I remember who here believes they know why one of these guys are all of what what do you think they were recognized for what do you think they were nominated for Tyler has like continued to completely and very quickly evolve his skill set I mean hiring I think 25 people this year the amount of volume that goes into that behind the scenes um and I know we've had quite a few conversations where Frank is just so hungry to learn I was going to say I think we throw a lot at Justin but like if you look at his calendar it's arguably the most full calendar of the entire company and you would never hear him say he's tired complain he's always super excited and I'll go ahead and and speak for Paul because I uh nominated Paul for unimpeachable character it is important to me that all of the people we hire whether they're sitting in this room or they're sitting in a portfolio they have a phenomenal experience Paul came back to me and I was like that's why your home is here he next few people I'm going to call and ask that you stand up Nadia uh Trevor conflict of interest for a moment but you're already you're standing deina and Hunter you're you're being recognized because several people in this room actually nominated you Tyler come on man let's hear I for Trevor working with him he is ated uh not only unimpeachable character but competitive greatness as well know just being able to like adapt to situation Hunter you are an incredible leader you do an amazing job of showing people around you everything that is answer to in edit right like timelines keeping everyone updated throwing in ideas on thumbnails when nobody's asked you to like there is just like such a level of leadership that you display that uh I'm also very grateful for operationalizing creativity that was what I thought when you sent me the document and I was like so awesome because I think to be creative you know you put it in that sop and when you shared it with me it helps me too because we're obviously doing it together and so it's so helpful I'll say something about deina you know I couldn't do what I do without you you have no I I'm seriously though I uh have worked with many other executive assistants like you're so professional you bring ideas to the table you bring Solutions and like I'm just happy to have you as my partner and like in acquisition so thank you this is the team I couldn't think of a better group to do it with I think just the coolest part was just like nobody wanted to stop the last group of people here blow us all away that is sincere um it's a really I'm sorry to be I'm trying so hard to [Music] hold all right I'm good but it it means a lot to me to to see how the people that we pull into the organization how they impact us all on and and each other on a day-to-day basis and so this group of people received more nominations than everybody else uh Jason you were one of these Jacob you are one of these people lizy also one of these people Yasmine Tobias I think that recognition is always something that we can do more of and I think that the way that we did it as well was one in which everyone was recognized for something so nice to hear because I think what we forget and what I forget is that a lot of people don't have that in their normal day-to-day life and I think that if you want to create a really great work environment like do in the workplace what people don't get outside of that I had the advantage of being able to provide a place like that at work where we do take time to do that a lot of people in here are really impressed with how hard you come every single day to this job I mean mean come on guys like the fact that she doesn't even need like she's just a g and with everything she does and she what I admire about her is her ability to be transparent and have those hard conversations when it needs to be had for the better of the company and how we run and she's just amazing yeah as mean is just you know we're coming up on six years together and I could really not do any of this without her and she has done so far beyond things that an executive assistant should even do just like I remember one time something spilled at my house you like brought a vacuum when I had my surgery you like put pants on me I mean like we've been pretty close um and it's just uh I think one thing that you do so well is you're just so non-judgmental and work so hard time over time you're constantly improving constantly trying to get better and so I just appreciate the shout out to you um but I know you guys have also went so far above and beyond on the back end of the book launch just the sheer volume of hours that you guys are putting in after after doing all the other stuff and having families and kids and husbands and trips on the weekend like we we mean it when we're like how did like we don't deserve you like we mean that like you guys are unbelievable like you guys do such a good job of setting the tone wherever we go because you guys are the first impression anyone gets Lea and I and so you guys are so like on it and like dialed and everyone knows that and it just then becomes the reflection of the entire rest of the company I will go next um I personally know Jason because this guy is just incredible which everyone here knows that like talking to him after a conversation you can't help but smile like Sam said he's just he like drives you to want to be better by how good is which is like very rare cuz sometimes you can maybe see that as a competition but it's like it's like a different kind of com it's like let's just all be good together and he brings that energy so I like I just I I had to nominate this guy cuz he's 10 out of 10 12 out of 10 one of zero great guy you are incredibly industrious like you work so hard but you're also incredibly enthusiastic one more for Mr Jason Jason moved to Vegas before he even started that says it all right there like Jason is down as for whatever needs to happen any extra request anybody on the team makes anything he's always like yeah cool like like smile like everything everyone has said is so true and I feel better talking to you every time I see the hunger that you have to like excel at this craft it's contagious man like it's really cool and it's really inspiring for everybody on the team and then what can I say about these [Laughter] three I I love you guys like honestly right you guys make it really easy to work with you every day as a as a unit the way you all click like I've been in a lot of high performing teams and seen high performance teams before and nothing really ranks anywhere close to this and I think it's because so you have the aptitude component but you have the attitude component too like you want to help everyone Jacob for example I think you're obviously a master in sales and our poror Co say that all the time you've driven like just incredible improvements across a wide variety of different situations I remember we had a one-onone once and you were like yeah my whole attitude is just if I can keep learning this is going to be fun for me and that's like you in a nutshell and then Lindsay I think like obviously your experience in customer success value that they want they want Lindsay to be involved I also think you have like an incredible muscle which is the ability to coach and to bring people together I've seen with our portfolio companies but also I've seen it with the way you brought Jacob and Tobias and myself all together and I think that like that's created that chemistry for us all to work well together I wanted to say thank you to Lindsay before the book launch Ben passed the Baton over to me to run the support team and and boy was that a damn challenge I don't think I could have done it if you hadn't come in and helped I've learned a lot and I've learned a lot from you so thank you so much thank you this is just a love between do you know Tobias I'll just tell the story like Tobias basically ran with the entire affiliate program for the book launch we had 27,000 Affiliates signed up and I found this out not having prompted Tobias from like the number 38 affiliate who's like hey I got this email from your affiliate manager and it was a personalized email from Tobias that I had not asked him to send urging them to email the list list again with ideas of what they could do and that was like number 38 and so he just took the entire list and was like I'm going to I'm going to push them and and when we had like I don't know 20,000 opt-ins from Affiliates I was like this is awesome he's like I think we can do more my goal in doing the nominations was the primer right is like you get people to start thinking about the day-to-day things that people do it's like Okay so we've done this you know like on text now we're going to share this oneon-one then like you sort of elevate the trust and the vulnerability and then the goal was by the end of the day people would be really feeling that cohesiveness of being together all day but of also kind of Having learned more about ourselves because everybody here because of the standards that we have and that we hope to continue to Aspire towards we all want to keep pushing the envelope we all want to get better and I feel like that's a common theme of like doing whatever you do exceptionally well and it's cool for everyone here because we all have outside perspective I of what it was like not here but I feel like that is the standard and and it's this is almost like an acknowledgement of that how do you increase communication typically by increasing the opportunities in which people can form relationships with each other with where we're growing as a company and how fast we've added people to the team it just provides a better environment to form those relationships that you wouldn't otherwise on Zoom Jimmy Michael Caleb Neil like your teams freaking love you guys like we're all I feel like we're really close here and if any of you guys want to speak up and speak to one of your managers or something that you've acknowledged about them and you would like to say that here please do Neil really help our portfolio partners and brainstorm and just you're never not supported I think your character is the thing that I am most impressed by the way that you think about everyone on the YouTube team and then everyone regardless on the team and the way that you handle that I think is remarkable this phrase that I'd heard a long time ago and i' never been able to practice until now of like pick your boss on your job and like this is an incredible job but like I think you really are such an amazing boss and because you're a great person I'm going to speak to Mr Jimmy here cuz you have come in and taken so much I think a lot of people don't realize like you're doing that with everybody on the team you care about everybody like you've seen where there's been a lot of changes that happened on the team and you have constantly been taking things off my plate that are not within your job description like you're so far along in your career and yet you still are that hungry and still striving to be better it's just such a great example for everybody else on the team Ben's perspective and just the way he hears things and then kicks it back to someone else you talk a lot I love listening though I really do because I always learn something from you Lea you know thank you for always hearing me and listening I think that's it's just one of your special skills of course you have many but you check in with me on these in like the moments that I feel like you know right and she just has this like special talent to check in right at that moment but you mean it we want to know how we're doing and I would just say that it's very unique that it's not something that a leader of a company both of y'all also do this very well but I would just say in general Lea the best part of my day today tomorrow is going to be even better I think the biggest thing that makes acquisition. comom a unique place to work is it's the culture and it's not this fake thing where people are like oh great job you did great there it's like really truly we all look at each other and we all want to push ourselves to the next level and especially with the leadership team they all really care about our development the culture they're bringing in they're going to bring something really really big and I think I really do think it's going to change the way people view leadership I I think I just feel grateful that everyone like wants to work here and likes working here I feel like I would hate my life if I walked into this room and felt like there were some people that want to be here I feel grateful that I have more skill now that I can actually communicate what we're trying to do and put words to what kind of culture we want to build tomorrow I think we have four presentations each person presenting is presenting on what I would consider is like their unfair Advantage like what makes them so good at what they do and so I'm really I'm really excited to listen um and I'm excited for everyone else to too so I think two things in my mind which is like transfer Knowledge from the leadership team to the entire team that would be beneficial for everybody and then the second is reinforce our culture and values like the nature of acquisition. is that a lot of what we do with our portfolio companies is explain things teach things and so I can't think of better people to teach the rest of the team than the leaders on our team that are doing that on a daily basis when you have leaders that can speak to the rest of the team they have context and they can contextualize the lessons which makes it easier for people to remember and apply so the presentations you know especially bends on buas es and then it ends with a thunderous Round of Applause got you it's giving office that's the [Music] intro talk to somebody that you don't normally get to talk portfolio team talk to media media talk to [Music] portfolio getting to kind of like hear and see different departments that don't work directly together and aren't as familiar with what each other are working on and the efforts we are putting in like everybody is putting it on the line and like striving for something better ultimately to help accomplish the mission of acquisition. comom the goal here is to talk about building a personal brand as an employee I felt like this was the best topic for Caleb to discuss because I think it's what he's best at he has built his career off of his reputation so I wanted to start with a quote from Mr Alex here uh basically just recapping what he spoke about yesterday brand is simply an association between two or more things for the brand to be successful the audience has to understand one of them here is a simple example I am going to use my face here if you don't know me you might make some assumptions about me because I'm wearing like a plain black hat or whatever but there's not a whole lot to go off of if you add in a Harley-Davidson logo on my hat that all of a sudden changes how you perceive me but it might ALS Al make you think that I'm just a hipster who thinks that Harley-Davidson is a great brand either way it changes how you view me possibly the biggest part though is that your brand is not one thing it's a collection of things that people associate you with because you are building your personal brand whether you want to or not we all in this room have personal Brands because yesterday we went around the room and we read things about each other and guessed and a lot of us guessed right your personal brand affects how your co-workers interact with you it affects the opportunities that come your way it's basically just reputation and so a quick story time for how I have used this when I was like 15 I read a book it was called crushit by Gary vaynerchuk and it basically predicted that people would be able to make videos and content and talk about things they're interested in for a full-time living and I quickly was like cool this is what I'm going to do I was in a small town in Washington and I had the opportunity to work for a company that he owned in New York City I went into it with a very specific goal in mind and that goal was to have my brand be Caleb can do it I wanted them to come to the conclusion that like Caleb can do that Caleb can do that video Caleb can handle that and so in order to do that I said yes to almost everything any project that came my way I think a lot of people view personal branding as talking about things rather than doing things that form the opinions that others have of your your brand and so it led to the outcome that I was hoping for right and so why did those big projects I was hoping for come to me well because the CEO Associated me with those things that I listed on the previous slide does anybody have any questions about this I have a question yes please Alex was talking about how Brands can shift over time so do you think we can do that with personal Brands too like and then how if somebody maybe had some negative associations that as they've grown and mature that now they're wanting to disassociate in favor of a more positive how would you suggest they go about that great question if we show up late to meetings we can start showing up to meetings on time and it changes our personal brand it's literally just making little shifts like that it just like it clicked for me it's like if you want career growth you almost need reputational growth through your brand growth in the company and I think there's a lot of people in this room that like they know that they want some eventually to have a different opportunity in the company or like within the portfolio companies or like as the company grows and it's like if you know what that is then just like a brand progresses over time your personal brand must if you want to be a leader start acting like a leader and you get that brand and then you will get a position 100% it's like applying the influencer model that everyone does externally on social within the company you work within in order to accomplish what you are actually wanting to accomplish I remember when I was a young younger younger man I went into a catering company I was really I was the youngest guy there and everybody there was an adult and so I was like what am I like and I came in really deliberately like I want just everybody there to think I'm the hardest working guy here and so then the owner ended up putting me on more jobs paying me more than the adults and all this stuff cuz like I had no ego about it um but it's just like when I went to a different job I didn't have that like what was my tagline and I kind of like had to I faltered for a little bit until I figured out yeah that worked really well before coming in with an intention I mean I think it's interesting because the only reason we even met was because I put the posting up for the position and then Ed turny texted me and was like I know this guy he's got a crazy reputation he's from Gary Vee and he just moved to Vegas like he would be perfect and I was like how do you even know and he was like I just know like that's what everybody says and then we got on the call and then I was like oh it is what everybody says like you're awesome and then and now here we are filming and making content becomes really important in building a brand because it is the way to amplify the brand that currently exists the real real is the documentation side of things is to show the expertise p and show the demonstration of it I think it's far more powerful to see Leila in a bad day and how she handles that and how she communicates with Alex how she communicates with the team how she makes decisions when she is really stressed and in my opinion it is the closest thing that we can get to mentorship at scale is being able to see them practically handle that rather than just talk about it I think for people watching if you have a business or you're aspiring to have a business if you're wondering what does a good good leadership team look like like I can confidently say there is one on display here now Ben our managing director of Business Development is going to give his presentation on five cognitive biases so welcome we're going to talk today about behavioral biases our mental shortcuts or behavioral biases can lead to poor decision-making and bad outcomes that negatively impact your career and learning strategies to mitigate behavioral biases can help you and your team kick ass and tick names theistic impulses gut feelings to quickly decide it works fast but it is prone to error however thinking slow is a very deliberate approach one that is aware of process considers all the ways in which you might screw something up five biases number one status quo bias so this is the preference for the maintenance of a current state and this is an emotional bias because it is an emotional need for things to remain as they are now and let's talk about some mitigating strategies for status quo bias when you're making a decision as a group especially always ask the question what decision represents the status quo ensure you have options that are not the status quo number two group think group think is a behavioral bias that occurs within a group of people whereby the desire for Harmony in the group suppresses dissenting viewpoints and critical thinking so let's talk mitigating strategy reward Rich discussion and debate if you've made a decision seek external opinions someone who is not in the group it's like media team like ask me I might have no idea but at least I come at it from a different point of view confirmation bias individuals tend to interpret information in a way that confirms their pre-existing beliefs and preferences this is cognitive because it is all about how we process seek out and store and then even recall information so force yourself to gather opinions that make you feel uncomfortable number four and I picked this for the media team this is called Peak and bias people largely judge an experience based on how they felt at its emotional Peak and then how they felt at the very end of the experience so this is again a cognitive bias because it is about how information is stored in your brain and then how you pull it out hindsight bias after an event has occurred people often believe they would have or even did predict it overcoming this bias is critical to becoming a successful career learner so let's talk about mitigating document decisions write a hypothesis if we do X Y will occur and Z will happen and there are some strategies that work for all behavioral biases number one seeking diverse and Outsider perspectives on big decisions challenge your own decisions and what did it push us to believe and what are the risks therein and now thunderous Round of Applause in a group environment I think it's like a subset of like group think is that people have competing priorities at the same time that's something that I've been trying to think through lately is like how do we as a group get everyone's opinion on ideas unaffected by the opinions of others about their opinion it's something I struggle with I remember Lea saying on the Monday meeting before we got here I think I've met all of you in person and I remember thinking I think I've met like four of you in person I am uh on a team that is Justin and I um so I've craved that time with the team but then getting such a broader experience of everybody else has been um really fantastic we are a remote company and so I think like a lot of people lack the connection that I get interaction with the team a lot most people don't have that though and so I look at it as that is probably where I feel like people will get benefit and so I think it's realizing all the Dynamics that exist in organization and being able to to educate everybody on how they affect the environment so Neil our portfolio operating partner is going to give his presentation on the importance of psychological safety in the workplace so I'm going be talking today about the secret to high performance teams you guys might have heard of Aristotle he was a a philosopher and he said the whole is greater than the sum of its parts now what he was referring to was was us as humans the team should also act like a human right it should be more than the sum of each individual component naturally I want to start by playing a game it's called psychologically safe or not psychologically safe so there's a senior engineer who would just talk and talk everyone was scared the hardest part was that everyone liked this guy outside the group setting but whenever they got together it's team something happening that made the culture go wrong so how many say high performing no one absolutely well you guys are 100% right this came from a not high performing team this one's a little tricky so but we'll see what you guys say at a re recent offsite a teammate stood and described some health issues of her own then another discussed a difficult breakup our team leader told us he had stage 4 cancer it was really hard but a really special moment all right High performing okay you guys are great I actually was a little confused by this one because I was like how much is too much information but this is actually comes from a very high performing team so I think what we're recognizing here by the way is that I was going to Define psychological safety when I was starting this presentation I was like I let me come up with like some dictionary definition of what psychological safety is but actually what we just went through here are all examples of good psychologically safe teams and not good not psychologically safe teams that everyone got it almost unanimously right so in teams with high psychological safety you are comfortable with the other teammates you can take risks and the last thing which is really important is that this is like it's like mental health for the individual psychological safety is like mental health for the team a few elements that I want to highlight of what it means to be psychologically safe so the cool thing was Project Aristotle Google they noticed this about high performing teams and they're they've came come up with like seven characteristics of high performing psychologically safe teams the first is a learning mindset openness to difficult decisions there's acceptance of others there's safety from risk there's collaboration support no one on this team would deliberately act in a way that undermines my efforts and so what I would like everyone to do if possible is let's commit for the next quarter to picking one action just one of these eight actions that you think you can improve on and committing to it okay does that work how we respond to people's bids in the companies is that's something that I I was telling Justin like I need to work on because I think lately I've had a lot of meetings and I come back and there's like a 200 slacks and then I'm just like normally I go through everything and I respond and I've just felt busier and so I just don't and then I'm like wow I missing out on so many areas where I could respond to those bids and I feel like uh I need to work on that people say things because they want a reaction and so if the reaction's not given eventually they won't say anything that's why I think people who have a hard time accepting compliments it's dangerous because you eventually will get none because if your reaction is poor or you reject them people won't give them to you anymore and then you think you're not good but it's simply that your reaction it's so easy I think when you're in a remote world to just focus on just work but I think when you're in person like this and you you intersperse a remote working environment with situations like this we get to connect with others there's there's such a there's like a powerful more interpersonal connection that you get to Foster that's missing last one last presentation how are we feeling yeah okay and lastly Sheila our managing director of people is going to give her presentation on how to have hard conversations this was something that she felt was my unfair advantage and that is having hard conversations 70% of hard conversations are really self-awareness and so we focus Focus though on the 30% that is the delivery types of conversations that are hard the first one is called what happened the second one is called identity what does a what happened conversation sound like literally you're trying to figure out what the hell just happened and everybody's like showing up with their own sets of facts and they're ready to like hash it out and tell you why you are not right so maybe think about impact and make the conversation about impact because if you focus on intention it's just going to take you down this path of building distrust or breaking existing trust the last of the three is called identity when you run into an identity problem because it's really easy to fall into this notion that I'm either good or bad I'm competent or incompetent and this person has now said this thing about me and that means that they think that I'm an idiot the way to go about that is to start by acknowledging hey this is a big project there there's a lot at stake here but this doesn't identify or Define either one of us as people and remember 70% of this is between your ears and that's good because that means it is a skill that you can develop and practice and work on so you have like the two curves that are inverted with latency and specificity so the later it is the more specific it has to be the sooner it is the more General can be like with the example that Le was talking about with the uh the book launch vendor who her communication it's like when we always ask like what's the goal of this like what problem am I solving her goal in that communication was for him to accept some level of responsibility not to really change his behavior it's like saying hey um Johnny you've been kind of slacking lately that doesn't change their behavior that's why I think the listing of the facts is so important in the discussion planning It's like because that's irrefutable and I think it's like in going through all this like the one message I think is underlying too is like when we're having these conversations like what I think you do really well is like seek not to punish the person but find a solution if you want to make sure hey this was a bad like this did not have a good outcome for either of us the it's address the facts and then what can we do to move forward I just think back to like 8 years ago when we started our first company and we had our first meet up and it was just me talking the whole time and there wasn't a lot of connection and probably a decent amount of like punishing events that occurred like I've never wanted that but I have lacked the skill to create what we have now and to see the team just work so well together and love being together it felt kind of like I did it thank you all for participating and like it's just been so cool because you know I feel like I feel like you guys all genuinely want to be here which is a great um it's like there's just been times in my past where you know maybe I didn't have the skill to build a team where people did all genu want to be there and so it feels really cool to feel that in this room and just like how down you guys are for all the presentations for all the activities we're doing and it was just such a shiny example of I think like I would be proud to show portfolio company like this was our acquisition. comom Meetup I wouldn't want to show up to my office every day and feel like I have to be a different version of Lea and I don't want people to feel like they have to show up to work every day and be a different version of themselves I create an environment where people feel safe to be themselves as well