Lessons - Why Passion and Grit Aren't Enough | Michael Dermer - From Wall Street Lawyer to Serial Entrepreneur

In this lessons episode, explore why entrepreneurial thinking is essential in both start-ups and large corporations. Discover how adopting this mindset keeps organizations competitive, understand how to present innovative ideas effectively within bureaucratic systems, and uncover how perspective, shape by pressure, passion, pleasure, and pain leads to better decisions for lasting success. And one thing that you mentioned, and you sort of highlighted on your site, and I like it a lot, there's people that are in all walks of life all stages in their journey trying to do a thing, you know, the side hustle is more popular than ever now. And one of the pieces that you actually mentioned was entrepreneur, entrepreneurism is not nice to have, it's a skill that must be unlocked in every company. So, speak to me about what that means for somebody who's in a company that doesn't understand how they can associate with the word entrepreneur. Yeah, it's a great point. So there's two kind of lens of this. One lens is, okay, you're in a company and you're thinking about leaving and doing your own thing, and that applies to some of the things that we've just been talking about. But companies to compete have to think like entrepreneurs, right? I mean, I mean, Amazon should not exist, right? Walmart should have created Amazon, and Blockbuster should create a Netflix, and so many should have created Spotify, like these organizations had all the way with all the duties of things. And today, if you don't think, we call it think like an entrepreneur, if you don't think like an entrepreneur within a larger company, you're just going to become kind of the next, you know, company that just doesn't stay up with the times. And that's a difficult thing to do, right? Because large companies don't operate that way. They think about quarterly numbers, and it's really hard for them to innovate. So, we have a program called think like an entrepreneur, which is a training program, which helps large organizations take what you learn from entrepreneurs, and employ it within a corporate environment to try to create some of these methodologies and thought processes that entrepreneurs have all day long, but just don't regularly get deployed in a corporate environment. Do you feel like you have advice for people that feel like they're being, I guess, held down, or just like their ideas are being choked out in the organization? How do they actually thrive in a company that is by the quarterly numbers with all the red tape? I'm curious as to how to do that. So, the people that rise, the men and women that rise to senior levels within organizations are the ones that are able to deliver results, right? There are ones that if you ask them, what do you do with your job? The first thing they're going to do is give you a number, right? I deliver X. I deliver this sales or this expense savings or whatever it may be, and this shareholder value. Those people are always interested in innovations that work, right? So, if you're stipled and you're in an organization, I mean, I think that we talked about before, we sold the health plans. Health plans did the same thing for 50 years, and the people that you were selling to were the very same people that put in place the things that you were trying to get rid of, right? So, and the same thing exists within an organization. What I would say is I would respectfully, whether it's the innovation people or the senior leaders in your group and say, listen, do your homework, like come up with a business plan, come up with a business case. Don't just walk in somebody who's the executive VP of BobbieBlo and say, I have an idea. Do your work and put it in a package, but say, this I believe that this can deliver us revenue, competitive differentiation, significant cost savings, and I'd like to have the opportunity to present it to you. And I can tell you that the people that are in those roles, are certainly you and me, we would always want to have that conversation if it was something that was credible, even if you're stifled at different levels of your organization. Yeah, not a good, very good point, very well said. I think that that's something to take note of, like you don't even if you feel like the organization doesn't support, or perhaps you don't see the peers, your peers working on things like this, take that initiative. And I think the takeaway message of the lesson is to, you know, you'd be surprised at what you can accomplish if you start going out there. And like you said, acting like an entrepreneur within a company and pushing these ideas in front of the right people or presenting them in front of the right people, it could really take that career to the next level within an organization. I can tell you what I did when I started my company. Our clients were health plans. And we're an early stage company. I used to literally sit down at eight o'clock at night and leave voicemails for the CEOs of our nation's largest healthcare companies, United Health Care, and I got seven out of 10 calls back. And that wasn't because of my bubbly personality. I basically said, listen, there's going to be a health plan here in the United States that's going to have a reward program just like Marriott and City Bank. And the one that does is going to win the consumer and the one that doesn't is going to fall behind. This is what we're doing. Give us a call back, right? So the CEO would normally say, I you could never get to the CEO. If you go to somebody and say, this is how you really win or this is how you really lose, right? They will break all the rules for you. Obviously, you have to be concise and unpointed and really talk to something that really makes a difference. But the people that arise to senior levels rise to senior levels because they cut through things and ultimately deliver some kind of financial performance. One point that I wanted to highlight because you list off a whole bunch of problems with mentors that align themselves with entrepreneurs, people that oversell themselves, people that are only looking for winners, so on and so on, that keeps going going. So as an entrepreneur, it's scary out there to align with someone. How do you look for the right person? There are a lot of mentors that are doing all the right things, but then there's also a bunch of mentors that are trying to sell you things, trying to bring in their own financial partners, trying to bring in their own marketing partners, and things like that. Here's what I would say. A lot of times mentors that maybe don't always have your best interest at heart. Like I said, there's many that do. A lot of times they prey on the risk that entrepreneurs are feeling. When you're talking to somebody and you have a mentor and to some of you really like and you're connecting with, go ask a colleague of yours. Not somebody that has the last thing, last name in you or somebody you're dating or your brother, just somebody who's business judgment you respect and say to them, hey, listen, I'm thinking about getting involved in this mentor. Can you talk to them for a half hour an hour? Because they're a completely objective view, right? And they will come in and say, well, I think this person's a little to this, a little to that. And that can really help you, especially when you talk about the book and this whole idea of perspective. We all know this. We're in the middle of it. We have a really tough time seeing things. What other people can see really clearly. That also works a lot when you're hiring employees, right? When you're working 24 hours a day, the person in front of you might just fire them just because they can speak, right? Because you're so busy. If you go to like, if I went to you and said, hey, listen, could you interview this person for me? You would give me a reason, thoughtful, you know, objective view. And I'd be able to make the right type decision just like I would with with a mentor. Yeah. Good advice. It's very good advice. I've never heard it frame like that. I've never heard that suggestion before, but I really like that a lot, especially when you're, you know, as an entrepreneur, you're right. You're just overtired, absolutely exhausted. No decisions you're making are probably the right ones. So you're trying to look for all these little tricks and tips to make it easier on yourself. I like that a lot. I'm not what we said before about like being a series of skills, right? It's not, yes, the big things matter, but it's also, you know, you hire the wrong person, you get the wrong mentor, you know, you're already kind of, you know, behind a fall a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. One other, the last thing not to end and date with lessons from the book, but I thought there was a few really, really good ones. And then I wanted to ask just some, like, some personal insights from your career. But the four P's you mentioned that perspective can be influenced by pressure, passion, pleasure, pain, or a flawed perspective. Yeah. He speak a little bit more on that and extrapolate just what that means exactly and how to sort of watch for that as an entrepreneur. I think we sort of touch on it a little bit, but just to make it clear into things. Yeah, it's really interesting when you take a step back after I sold my company and you're like, what is up? What do we all really go through? Like when we were writing the book, we were saying, what do we really go through? And this whole idea of a four P's can we start saying, well, you have passion, right? And you're like, well, I'm going to make meatballs, right? And somebody will go, well, the world has plenty of meatballs and you'll be like, well, not my meatballs, right? So we all have that kind of, but then you also have, you know, pressure, right? There's a lot on you sometimes financial pressure, sometimes you leave a job. You know, you have the pleasure of, you know, the first time you, you, you print your business card, you get your first customer, it's like your first kiss, right? And then the pain, you know, when the first time an investor tells you that they don't like your business, it's like somebody's calling your baby ugly. And, and we're really invested in when you're, we're always under the influence of these four P's that make us do the wrong thing. When we're under pressure, right? We hire the wrong person, right? When we're feeling all passion about our meatballs, sometimes we're not listening to the feedback of the market saying, hey, it doesn't work this way, but it might work that way. So we just always have to be really cognizant of the fact that we're kind of under the influence of these things so we can employ some of the techniques we were talking about before. Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you want to dive deeper into this conversation, check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.