Embark on a voyage through the tumultuous seas of leadership with Travis Maus and Dave Nirchi as we dissect Ben Horowitz's "The Hard Thing About Hard Things." We're not just talking theory here; we're getting down and dirty with the real-life dramas that shape the leaders of today and tomorrow. Our candid conversation peels back the layers of what it truly means to guide a company through its darkest hours. We promise you'll walk away from this episode with a deeper understanding of the relentless drive and resilience demanded of those at the helm.
Embark on a voyage through the tumultuous seas of leadership with Travis Maus and Dave Nirchi as we dissect Ben Horowitz's "The Hard Thing About Hard Things." We're not just talking theory here; we're getting down and dirty with the real-life dramas that shape the leaders of today and tomorrow. Our candid conversation peels back the layers of what it truly means to guide a company through its darkest hours. We promise you'll walk away from this episode with a deeper understanding of the relentless drive and resilience demanded of those at the helm.
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Speaker 1:
This is Unleashing Leadership, and I'm your host, travis Moss, and welcome back. And today we are kicking off season five, which will be focused on the lessons learned from the book the Hard Thing About Hard Things, with Ben Horowitz. Joining me for the entirety of the season is my colleague, dave Nurchey. Dave is a former guest of the show. He joined us during Season 2's team interview on the Ideal Team Player. Dave is also the Chief Operating Officer in a shareholder-in-chief planning group, so we get to work together every day. The chief operating officer and a shareholder in Sheik Planning Group, so we get to work together every day. And I've invited Dave to join me because we get into these discussions almost daily about leadership and management and how to overcome the challenges, and I think a lot of those discussions mirror a lot of the takeaways from the hard thing about hard things.
Speaker 1:
So, needless to say, season five is going to be very different. Each episode is going to be raw, it's completely unscripted and we're going to talk through our pick list of takeaways. So, all right, dave, the formality is a little bit out of the way. We're just going to get this thing started for our listeners. We have a pick list, so what that is, is a running list of all of let's call them thought-provoking points that we pulled from the book and we're talking well over a hundred of them. And we were talking before the show and we kind of decided what to start with. Now, we didn't script any of this, we just basically have the point that we're going to start out with, basically have the point that we're going to start out with, and that point was there are no shortcuts to knowledge and a little bit new for this season Each point is going to be brought to us by a sponsor and so there are no shortcuts to knowledge is brought to us by Ditch the Suits podcast, where we focus on helping you get more out of your money and life.
Speaker 1:
You can get more about that at nqrmediacom. You can see all the different shows that we produce. That happens to be one of them. It's our flagship show, so check it out. Support, ditch the Suits and Financial Knowledge. But, dave, back to our point. I guess I'm going to tee this up a little bit and just to let the listeners know how this season's going to go. I'm going to tee up up a little bit and just to let the listeners know how this season is going to go. I'm going to tee up the point, talk a little bit about the book or perspective on it, turn it over to you and then we're going to argue.
Speaker 2:
Love it. I don't know if we're going to. I don't know if it's going to be yeah, yeah, I don't.
Speaker 1:
I don't know, I'll do like last points or something, and you're like, well, I want to do the last. So we're going to argue about who gets the last word in. It'll be fun, though. I think we're going to have a lot of fun with us. So no shortcuts to knowledge.
Speaker 1:
I think the point with this with the book Ben Horowitz that is making is that so, simply put, you're going to get into leadership and management, and if you're an entrepreneur, you're going to start a company, and you are just going to fall flat on your face. You are going to have to make the mistakes that are required to actually get good at it. It doesn't matter what school you go to, it doesn't matter, you know how smart you are. It doesn't matter, you know how smart you are. You're going to end up in situations that, when you looked at the spreadsheet, you kind of see this line going Everybody has a business plan. They're like I'm going to, you know, get this much business and then the next year it'll grow by 10 percent, the next year by 10 percent, or whatever, right, and you do this projection and you go look at how great I'm going to be. You do it on your own personal life. Probably even you go okay, I'm going to have this much money this year, this much money next year and this much money the year after, and then I'll put the kids through college or something Right.
Speaker 1:
So we do this projection where, like this is where I'm starting, this is where I'm going to be, and what it doesn't say in that spreadsheet is all the noise in basically each one of those points that you're plotting out. You know all the stuff that you're going to do, that you go. I wish I knew that before. And I think his point is is that you're only going to learn because you roll up your sleeves. You get into the mess, I mean, you fuck it up a whole bunch of times. Sometimes you ask for forgiveness, sometimes there's no forgiveness to be given and you just move on. But the key is learning, and that's, I think, maybe where the knowledge part comes from, because it's it's not just good enough to have the experience, but then you learn from the experience and now you now you could tell younger you, hey, this is maybe a better way that you could have done this.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I mean, that's what I think he mentions going through it right, it's like the words he uses and that's how you do it. Just as you said, travis, the learning part, I think, is the key there. You can't shortcut it right. It doesn't matter what school you went to, it doesn't matter. There's no class that's going to teach you like, like, falling on your face and getting up, right, you just got to do it. It's shitty, you deal with it, you move on. Um, I think the the big point. My takeaway there is it's how you approach. Getting out of comfort zones like this is what creates the experience. Right. If you just sit in a comfort zone and you don't want to change or develop or try things you know the hard things right You're not going to get the experience or learn very fast. It's going to take a lot of time if you're just kind of going through the motions.
Speaker 1:
Imagine what the class syllabus would look like. I mean, because even in the years now that we've been doing this together, we've seen a lot of oh God, I wish we had done that better or different, right, but imagine what the class syllabus would look like for falling on your face and getting up. So the class is called F'd Up and basically it's all about how, if you're going to be in charge and and and and get to call the shots and stuff, you will screw up, you will fall down, you will be uncomfortable, you will be insecure. You know you will feel like your guts have been pounded and like you want to quit. But yeah, that's how you learn how to do this stuff.
Speaker 1:
And yeah, I don't even think with mentors. The thing about business is every business is so unique I mean, you were consulting with PWC there's certain elements that are consistent, but the business itself you know the DNA of the business itself is still going to be unique to the business. Even if you have great mentors or great consultants or you're brilliant, you're still going to screw up because nobody's been through exactly. You know your. Your business is on its own path and nobody's been down that path exactly before.
Speaker 2:
Right, and there's no way you could grow your business without making mistakes, right, like, like, taking the risk is going to cause mistakes and I love the idea for that class. I think that's a great idea.
Speaker 1:
They don't do that. We should put that together.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, they teach entrepreneurship and right. Isn't that like a major or like a minor in colleges? What are those classes? Because?
Speaker 1:
it's a BS program. They're just basically taking your money. If you want to know how to be an entrepreneur, go be an entrepreneur. Exactly, yeah. Don't listen. To know how to be an entrepreneur, go be an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, don't listen to people who like basically Are teaching how to be one, are trying to say that there's some kind of special like here's the difference with entrepreneurs.
Speaker 1:
To me, anybody can start a business. Not everybody has a stomach for the risk that is required to scale a business. Right, and we use entrepreneur pretty loosely. It's like anybody who's a business owner is not. No Entrepreneur is specific to risk taking, and that is a hard thing to be able to control because people it's why people have gambling problems, right you get over addicted to taking risk or you get too averse to taking risk. So you either won't take the risk because it makes your stomach sick, or you take so much risk because you're like I'm supposed to take risks, or let it fly and you are destructive. And so how do you figure out the happy medium? That's an experience thing, that is a oh shoot. You know that was a little too hot, don't touch it. But I had to touch it to figure that out. That's the only way you figure it out. You don't know what you're capable of until you push yourself through a threshold.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, you could tell your toddler a hundred times and not touch the stove right, this is hot, this could be hot. Your toddler a hundred times and not touch the stove right, this is hot, this could be hot. Don't touch it. They might still touch it. And the one time they do and it was hot. They're not going to touch it again, Right? So?
Speaker 1:
unfortunately, sometimes you got to just learn it that way. Well, and what's the amazing thing about those toddlers? They burn their skin, but like what do they do? They heal, they heal right up, right, right, and then they know not to touch it. So, or they're gonna touch it, put you know, put something over their hand or something, but and that's what it is. It's sometimes you just got to get burned to to really learn the message.