176 Money Moves with Patrick Bet-David

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Hala Taha: You are listening to YAP, Young and Profiting Podcast, a place where you can listen, learn and profit. Welcome to the show. I'm your host, Hala Taha. And on Young and Profiting Podcast, we investigate a new topic each week and interview some of the brightest minds in the world. My goal is to turn their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your everyday life, no matter your age, profession, or industry.

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This week on YAP. We're chatting with Patrick Bet David. Patrick is the CEO and founder of PHP Agency, an extremely successful insurance, sales, marketing, and distribution company. He's also the creator behind the YouTube channel, Valuetainment, which has over 3 million subscribers and has been referred to as the best channel for entrepreneurs. He's the host of the BPD podcast and the author of numerous books, including his latest, [00:02:00] Your Next Five Moves. 

Patrick has been featured by Forbes, CNN, FOX- Entrepreneur, and many other media outlets. In this episode, Patrick shares how his upbringing influenced the way he approaches business and life. We learn the difference between an entrepreneur versus an entrepreneur and why sometimes entrepreneurship is not the answer.

We'll then get into Patrick's new book, Your Next Five Moves, and we'll gain insight as to why it's critical for successful entrepreneurs and chess Grand Masters alike to have the ability to envision and anticipate their next five moves. Whether you feel like you've hit a wall, lost your fire, or are simply looking for innovative strategies to take your business to the next level.

This conversation with Patrick Bet David is likely to have all of your answers. 

Hey Patrick, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast. 

Patrick Bet-David: It's good to be on with you. 

Hala Taha: I am very stoked for this conversation. You are the CEO and founder of the PHP Agency and the creator behind the hit YouTube [00:03:00] channel Valuetainment, which is a number one YouTube channel for entrepreneurs.

And before we get into your come up story and your most recent book, Your Next Five Steps, I did wanna touch on your amazing story. You were born and lived in Tehran during the Iran-Iraq War in 1987. Take us back to those terrifying days when you were just eight years old and what those moments were like for you.

Patrick Bet-David: It's crazy you're asking that question. We were just having this conversation with somebody. But yeah, I was born in 1978 during the peak of the revolution in Iran where they were kicking the shot out. So I was born October, 1878. Four months later, he went into exile. Khomeini came in. The moment Khomeini came in, Saddam Hussein in Iraq saw the fact that Iran was in shambles and Khomeini didn't have the military leader's ears. They didn't really respond to him. So this was a weak moment in Iran. He attacked. So we were in at war with Saddam Hussein in Iraq for quite a while. I remember one day we were living in Tehran, Iran, and we got bombed 160, sometimes in a [00:04:00] day.

We escaped Tehran. We went to a city called Karaj. And then from Karaj we went to Bandar Pahlavi, which is like North Iran. And then eventually we came back to Tehran and my mother finally said, this is not a place to be. We would always watch Rocky movies. We would watch movies with a dream of one day coming to America, and my mom told my dad, if we stay here, this guy has to serve the military and I don't want my son to serve the Iranian military.

My dad agreed. We sold everything. We got on a plane, Lufthansa plane, went to Germany, and I lived at a refugee camp there for two years. And from there, came to the States. Couple things that helped me out with both of those areas in Iran, extreme level of paranoia, which some people might say paranoia's a good thing.

It's a very good thing if you're a military leader. It's a very good thing if you are a parent. It's a very good thing if you are a founder of a company. It's a very good thing if you're an investor. It's a very good thing for all of those things. So that paranoia got me to always be thinking about, what if we go out of business?

What if we do this? So lemme save a little bit more [00:05:00] money. Let me invest more here. What if the speed slows down? What if we can't explain it? What if this was always that? So you are more urgent. You'll put 2, 3, 4 more hours a day. You'll show up on a Saturday, maybe you'll do a half day on Sunday every once in a while.

And then in Iran, in Germany at the refugee camp, we were there with people from Yugoslavia at the time, Albania, Poland, Afghanistan, all over the place. I had to learn how to befriend people from different ethnicities. So I learned people skills and dealing with different people. That was very helpful. And it came to the states November 28th, 1990, and that brought a whole slew of different issues that have to get better at.

Hala Taha: So talk to us about how coming from immigrant parents, like really shaped who you are into in terms of wanting this massive amount of success. Like you are extremely successful. Why do you think that is? Because I find that people who have faced the most adversity end up being the most successful in life.

Patrick Bet-David: I just had the coach. If you've seen the movie, King Richard with Will Smith, the story of [00:06:00] Serena Williams. He just left the office five minutes before I got on with you. I had him on the podcast just a minute ago. And we were talking about what it was like. He's played by John Bernthal in that movie, King Richard, and he says parents were tougher back in the days on their kids than they are today.

So you are Middle Eastern like myself. Our parents are a little bit more high standard pressures like, you better do this. You be a doctor or a lawyer, or an engineer. And if you become an engineer, you're a failure in life if you don't have a four year degree, how dare you not have a four year degree?

It's constant pressure, right? And so the idea of being raised in that environment, it was constant and never ending pressure to perform, which, if you decide to compete in the world of business, we talked about players like Ben Simmons, who plays for the Nets. You're from Jersey, so you know he's in that area but Ben Simmons just came to the Nets from Philadelphia. He got 20 million last year for not playing [00:07:00] this year for not playing. And then he's coming to the Nets. He's clear to play, but he doesn't wanna play because mentally he's going through certain challenges. And then these other tennis players are saying the same thing.

Some of the Olympic players are saying the same thing. What? Being raised in that kind of an environment toughened me up where I could maybe tolerate pressure. In a better way because I've had pressure in my life my entire life since I was a kid. So this is nothing compared to what we went through.

Maybe that's the strength that you get from heaven, that kind of an environment. And now I have four kids. I have two boys and two girls. I'm trying to create that kind of a pressure for these guys. It's hard to do because they live in a resort. They travel everywhere. They have a certain lifestyle that they're accustomed to, so I have to figure out ways to create that pressure for them in a different way that maybe I don't have access to, because ours was natural.

But I think you need that. The more you have that as at a younger age, the more you're gonna be able to handle it later on in life, because life is very hard. It's not [00:08:00] easy living in today's times, marriage, raising kids, finances, temptation, challenges, competition, conflicts, crucial conversations, staying healthy, taking care of your investments, following politics, yet not following politics. It's a different era we're living, so it pays a lot to handle pressure today. It's a very very high paid skillset for those who know how to handle pressure. 

Hala Taha: Yeah. Oh my gosh, I love that answer. So let's talk about when you immigrated to the us. So it wasn't exactly smooth sailing. In high school you actually had a 1.8 GPA. You had a really low SAT score. And so why do you think that you struggled so much in high school? Was it a language barrier? 

Patrick Bet-David: Yeah. So in high school, I took ESL all the way through college. First semester when I had ESL and then I left college, I dropped out. But in high school I was on math. I love math analysis. I love pre-calculus. I love everything to do with numbers. [00:09:00] To me, math is like incredible. Everything else. I failed biology, I could care less about biology did nothing to me. My teacher at the end. Her name was Miss Tiffany. We're at our final and she says, can I have Patrick Bet-David, and Sean stand up?

Me and Sean, this other kid stand up and she says, even if you got a hundred percent on this test, you still wouldn't get a D. So she says, I love you guys. You guys are very funny, but you have no reason to take the finals. She gave us a hug and we left. I had many of these classes that I had no interest in.

I had no interest in certain classes at that phase of my life. I was interested in selling, I was interested in making money, and I was interested in people. So if let's just say you and I were classmates, I would've known everything about you by the end of the class. I would've known about your parents, their names, their date of birthday, your date of birth, your favorite food, your favorite sports team.

Do you like sports team? What's your favorite movie? Your favorite song? Who's your favorite teacher in school? Who's your favorite quarterback? I would've known details cause I'm curious about you. I was the curious kid that [00:10:00] wanted to know the why kid. I was always like, why do we do this? Who were why'd you do it?

What motivated you to do this? What do you, why do you like this so much? I don't like this. Why do you like it? It was curiosity. So that helped me out. When it comes down to business, because I was extremely curious about human beings and what got 'em to tick. So I had zero interest in the current educational model that they had. It was extremely boring to me. 

Hala Taha: Yeah, and it's really interesting that you say that because sometimes the traditional school system doesn't really cover what you actually need in real life, and it sounds like you were more about getting that experience and having social skills and actually that can really pay off later in life. So I think that's pretty interesting that you say that. 

So you ended up joining the military because you basically thought you had no other choice. What was the military like for you? How did you apply those skills to entrepreneurship?

Patrick Bet-David: I loved the military. One of the best decisions I ever made is going into the military because I learned how to, again, get along with people from Mississippi, New York, LA, South Dakota, North [00:11:00] Dakota. I learned the different cultures in the states. I learned what it is to work 80 hours a week, steady for six months straight. I learned what it is to sleep in dirt for a couple weeks and couldn't stand it. I learned camaraderie. I learned teamwork. I learned backing each other up. I learned all of that stuff.

And military taught you hard work in a way. People think they've worked hard until they go into the military and then they come out and they say, shit that sucked on how much we have to work. Are you kidding me? This was ridiculous what we had to do. It made no sense. You are so tired. I remember one time I'm in bootcamp, we've done so many pushups and anytime an officer walks out, everybody was a company attention and everybody would stand like this and you have to salute the officer.

I couldn't salute where my left hand is holding my right arm up and it would fall and my shoulders were gone. So training was amazing. Cardio was nonstop, but it brought us together. If you were at our army unit, you knew us. It was a group of our friends, myself, McElroy, [00:12:00] Bradford ,Gutierrez, Clingerman.

It was a group of us. We were inseparable. You couldn't separate us when we were together. So you learn a lot of that stuff. And when I got on, I started working at Valley Total Fitness and Sales. I brought that camaraderie, I brought that. You have to be emotionally tough cuz we were very sarcastic towards each other.

People couldn't handle it. Like everybody would take shots at each other, but we could do it to each other. And then people wanted to get into the circle, but we were you gotta really be able to handle this circle. This is not an easy circle to be a part of. We really kick each other's ass and look, oh, but I wanna be a part of it and then we try you.

I'm like, no, you're too soft. You can't handle this. There was a certain level of toughness and I brought that back into our sales team that we applied, but it wasn't for everybody. But I loved it. I wouldn't do it any other way. One of the best decisions I made in my life. 

Hala Taha: Yeah. Something that I keep hearing from you as you're talking about these stories, what sounds really important to you is all the connections you were able to make from all these diverse backgrounds. Like you said, when you're in the refugee camp, you met all these people from Europe and you had to learn how to be their friends. You came to [00:13:00] America you were curious about your classmates. You went to the army, you met all these people from the states and had to build camaraderie. Why is that so important to you? Why does that stick out to you so much when you tell these stories? 

Patrick Bet-David: Motive, motivation stories. Everybody's family screwed up in a way or another, and we all hide it very well. We all have that one relative that screwed up. We all have those moments where we were screwed up at time. That connection gets you to see the humane side of people that we have a lot more in common than we think we do.

We may disagree on who's the best sports team. We may disagree on where we think taxes need to be. We may disagree on clothes or music or some of that stuff, but about 95% of stuff in life we most people agree with, and it's finding that commonality. And then outside of that, I don't think there's more exciting product in the world than people.

I can't think of a more exciting, interesting product in the world than people. Yeah, cars are nice. Yeah, homes are nice. Planes, [00:14:00] gadgets, technology is nice, but human beings, the steady motion, it's that feeling. It's that finding what button moves you versus moves me versus moves my kids versus moves my best employee and finding out why that person who is so extremely talented.

The other day I had the boys, my sons watch Good Will Hunting and there's a scene where Ben Affleck tells his friend, Matt Damon saying, I swear to God, if I see you three years from now, I'm gonna kill you. He says, what do you mean? He says, look, some of us are not as smart as you are, but if you don't use that for anything, you are an idiot.

He says, what are you talking about? I see myself living here for the rest of my, he says, no, I don't. You gotta get, says, I look forward to one day coming up to picking you up and I knock on your door and you don't answer. He says, every day I come to pick you up, I hope is the day that you left without telling any of us, because you're gonna go out there and pursue your dreams.

And eventually it happens when he goes knocks on the door and. I don't know if you've seen the movie Good Will Hunting, and he doesn't open a door in that one scene. It's an [00:15:00] emotional scene. It's kinda like eventually we all have to make a decision to open that door and go spread our wings and see what we're capable of.

And that moment is scary. It's frightening because it's on us. If we win, it's on us. If we lose, it's on us. You can try to blame your mom, your dad, your ex, your boss, your teacher, your siblings, your, you can't blame anybody you want, but unfortunately the market's gonna put it back on you and they're gonna say, Hey man, that was your fault.

I know you don't wanna hear this, but it was on you. Hey, good job you won. That's also your fault. And then shows up haters and competitors. But wait, I thought everybody wanted me to win. No, not everybody wanted to see you win. Some people said that, but only if you actually wanted to see you win. And how do you handle that?

Because some of them were your friends, some of them are your relatives. This is all part of testing life and very few people can handle all of this. But I don't know. I'm fascinated with human beings, with people. 

Hala Taha: Let's hold that thought and take a quick break with our sponsors. 

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Hala Taha: This episode of YAP is brought to you by the Jordan Herbinger Show. You may know that Jordan Harbinger is my favorite all-time podcaster, so much so that I've [00:17:00] willed him to become my podcast mentor and we literally talk every single day. The Jordan Harbinger Show is the perfect show for Young and Profiteers to add to their rotation.

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And I can't wait to get into using your haters to feel your motivation and everything later on, but let's stick on your story. I wanna learn more about your come up journey is super inspiring. So you left the military and then you wanted to become the next Arnold Schwarzenegger. That was your plan. [00:19:00] You went to California, I believe, and you wanted to just become like a bodybuilder and make your way that way. So talk to us about that. 

Patrick Bet-David: Yeah, so I was the guy, if you would come to my army barracks, I had pictures of bodybuilders, fitness models and Arnold and John Travolta everywhere. That's what it was. When I say John Travolta, I mean from the movie Staying Alive or Saturday Night Fever, I was the guy that would wear polyester pants with bell bottoms and I would wear these shirts with the big collars.

You should see some of the pictures. It's not a person many would recognize if they follow my content, but yeah, I got out, I said, I'm gonna be Mr. Olympia. I'm gonna win Mr. Olympia one day, then go into Hollywood. Be a big star and then I'm gonna marry a Kennedy and then one day I'm gonna be the governor.

It's ah, that's who I'm going to be, right? And then I came out and I went to a Olympia show myself to learn if this is what I wanted to do or not. And I partied with some of the guys and I'm like, there's no way in the world I'm gonna put in my body what I have to put in to win this thing.

And I'm 6'4, 6'5. I'm way [00:20:00] too tall. The right high for body building is 5'10, 6'5 is too tall. Maybe 5'11. My muscles are longer. So longer muscles to develop. It's tougher than shorter muscles. Anyway, so I said, yeah, I'm not doing Mr. Olympia. But I came back and I started working on Morgan Stanley, Dean Whitter.

I made a girl named Javier who was working at Morgan Stanley. We met at Venice Beach. We started dating and I said, you know what? I'm gonna try this Morgan Stanley thing and give it a try. Cause she worked there. I sent my resume in with a joke on the cover letter of it. I sent it to a hundred different places, 30 people called me back.

They thought the joke was funny. 15 of them offered me an interview, and then I think I got three offers. And I took Glendale, Morgan Stanley, Dean Whitter, and I was 21, 22 years old when I first got started with them. Got my series 76631 Life in Hell, 26, and I went that route. So as much as I loved Hollywood, as much as I loved storytelling and going and being a big time actor in Hollywood and playing the roles [00:21:00] that I wanted to play, that moment I'm like, Nope, I'm leaving this behind.

I'm gonna go this way. Maybe one day I'll make movies and I'll create a smaller depart for myself, but I'm gonna go into business. And I saw everything from the lens of a mathematician, numbers, all this stuff fell in love with financial industry. And obviously the rest is history there. 

Hala Taha: Do you remember what the joke was on your cover letter?

Patrick Bet-David: I do. I do. So father once tells. Three sons, when I die, I want you to throw a thousand dollars into my burial in front of everybody. I want everybody to know how much you love me. And he tells the sons, you have to make sure you do this. The kids say, no prom. So the day comes, dad dies. First son goes up, he throws a thousand dollars, but it's a $1,000 bills.

Everyone starts crying. The second son shows up, he throws 20, $50 bills. Everybody starts crying. The third one was an accountant. He comes in, he writes a check for $3,000, drops it in there, takes all the cash and walks out. So that story [00:22:00] made 30 people laugh and three job offers. And I ended up working on Morgan without a four year degree.

Hala Taha: Again, this is you using your skills as a people person to get what you want. It's everything that you had learned along the way and it ended up working out for you. I love that. Okay, so let's talk about you being an intrepreneur within your organization, because like me, I started my business as a side hustle working in corporate at Disney.

So I also worked in corporate and I'm really happy I took that route. I'm really happy that I didn't just start my business without any corporate experience first. So talk to us about the importance, like if that was, your feeling as well, do you feel like you don't regret working for other people and learning off their dime?

Patrick Bet-David: Yeah, so to me, when I started creating content, I made this video called Life of an Entrepreneur in 90 Seconds, and this was October 31st, 2015. It's been nearly seven years, and a video gets 10 million views in 24 hours. That's when that was viral. Everybody said, oh my God, I got 30 million [00:23:00] views now, few hundred million views.

It's had on different downloads, uploads, and everybody was pressured to have that. Entrepreneur in their Twitter handle, right? Oh, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm an entrepreneur. I'm an entrepreneur. And then a guy from IBM sends me a message and he says, look man, I read your stuff. I follow your stuff. I feel like in order for me to succeed, I have to quit IBM.

And I don't think that's the right decision to make. Cause I'm doing very well and I love the company, but I don't wanna leave the company. But I feel like I have to. I said, you know what? You make a very good point. Here's what you need to be thinking about. There are many great companies that retain potential future entrepreneurs who become entrepreneurs, and they can make the same amount of money as an entrepreneur without having to take the risk.

He says, what do you mean? I said, take Paul Allen for an example. He's an entrepreneur. We can go through so many stories of how money is made of people who are entrepreneurs are within a company. They become the president, then they become the CEO like Tim Cook, who's a billionaire now. He's an [00:24:00] entrepreneur.

He's not an entrepreneur. There are so many billionaires today who've always been an entrepreneur. Now what's an entrepreneur? An entrepreneur is an entrepreneur, thinks like them, works like them. Creative like them. Obsessed like them. Oh, see, nonstop going like them. The only difference between an entrepreneur and the entrepreneurs, the entrepreneur put the money up.

That's it. So the entrepreneur gets a little bit more respect because he or she took all the risks. So most people are I have to go be an entrepreneur. You don't have to be an entrepreneur. Let me put the option to the individual who's thinking they have to go be an entrepreneur in a different way.

Say, Elon Musk at 32 years old. Elon started a company and he is planning on buying this one company called Tesla and he wants to compete in the automotive industry. You have a shot at going in and getting 0.2% of the company, but that's nothing Pat. Okay. Fair. It's nothing. What's 0.2% today of a trillion dollar company?

0.2% [00:25:00] of a trillion company it's $2 billion. So you may have been like, yeah, but you're not an entrepreneur. Yeah, but you are. You are 2 billion. You did okay. You didn't have to be an entrepreneur. So would you rather be an entrepreneur being worth 50 million or be an entrepreneur or $2 billion? 

Hala Taha: Yeah. 

Patrick Bet-David: You can go on a liquor store and it's your liquor store and it's only one, and you make 180 grand a year net, but you're an entrepreneur.

Or you can walk, go work with a killer guy like Musk and get equity in that company and become a decamillionaire. So that notion between the two social media is confused a lot of people. Before people jump and go out there and just become entrepreneurs. If you know any killers around you or if you know anybody, we said, I don't know who that person is, but I know that guy's going places with that new company has started.

I'm gonna send him a message and I wanna send, don't wanna work for you before I start my own business. Maybe that's gonna be a better route for me. Just as much as you're looking for ideas and companies to work for, look for great creative [00:26:00] minds and personalities who you feel are gonna do something massive.

Figure out a way to go team up with them that may be just as valuable as a great company to be a part of, maybe even more. 

Hala Taha: This is so valuable. I love what you just said, like I resonate so much with it and I think it also is important to understand what you really want because money is not the end all, be all. It also matters. What kind of work-life balance do you want? Do you wanna have a family? Do you want to work 18 hour days for four years? These are all questions that you need to ask about yourself and what you truly want in life. And sometimes they don't align with being an entrepreneur of a huge company.

It's really hard to be an entrepreneur and a CEO. 

Patrick Bet-David: Extremely difficult. 

Hala Taha: Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about how you started your first company. So you worked at Transamerica for over seven years, and then you started a national finance service company, PHP Agency. And you say your business was inspired by saying your dad told you never be afraid of the truth. Why did you decide to start that [00:27:00] business? 

Patrick Bet-David: Yeah, so I was working at Transamerica and I was at Morgan Stanley prior to that, and a few things happened during that era. Number one is I saw in the securities industry when you were selling stocks, bonds, mutual funds, you had to report to your boss, broker dealer every time you communicated with somebody on Facebook.

So it's very weird. You're like, every time I communicate with a client, I have to report it to you. You do. Why? Because that's the BD guidelines. I'm like, that's just insane because social media is the way of life as well, because you have to report everything on email. You have to report everything on social media.

I say, you don't understand. That's not sustainable. That's what the regulation says. I said, okay, sounds good. Being somebody that's securities license have to adjust to it then. Then I said, that's not gonna last long term. Social media's here to stay and it's just gonna get bigger. This is oh four, 18 years ago.

Then I watched a guy named Ron Paul raise $6 million on MySpace in 24 hours. Okay, now this is MySpace. Most people don't [00:28:00] know what MySpace is if their age starts with the number two or they're teenagers, they don't know what MySpace is, right? MySpace, your age has to start with three to really know what MySpace is.

At least that you used it, right? So he raises 69 year old man, runs for president and raises $6 million on MySpace in 24 hours, and it becomes a Guinness Book of World record. I'm like, that's crazy to see that happening. Then I saw the Hispanic vote becoming very big. Then I saw one term senator become a two term president all through social media raising five $10 Barack Obama.

And then I saw every article talked about the fact that for every dollar that spent 75 cents of the dollar spent, the decision maker was a woman. So women power was getting Girl Boss. This was like a, it was starting to become more and more women wanted to become business owners and executives and entrepreneurs.

Anyways, I'm watching all this stuff. I said, this is the direction the financial industry's going. So October of oh nine, I started my own insurance company. [00:29:00] I wrote a book about the next perfect storm. And I explained, here's what's gonna be happening. And today, if you come to one of our conventions, we just had a convention at MGM Grand Arena.

You come in August, we'll have 15,000 people there. We've had the late Kobe Bryant interviewed in front of everybody. We had President Bush there, we've had Kevin Hart do the Irresponsible Tour. We've had Sebastian Maniscalco perform last year. We had Nicky Jam there, Mike Tyson, we had Mario Lopez was our MC.

This year we have Shaq, we have Kurt Warner, we have Laila Ali, we have Penn and Teller performing. We have Nelly's opening up the convention as a concert. But the average agent today is a 34 year old Hispanic female. So I saw the youth, I saw the women, and I saw Hispanic, and then we're multicultural.

So you'll see 15,000 people from all different backgrounds. So those trends that I studied is what led me to start an insurance agency targeting that specific audience, and it led to what it is today.

Hala Taha: That's [00:30:00] amazing. And so you really made insurance sexy. Typically an insurance agent is like an old white guy, right? And you're having like young Latino women selling for you. How did you attract those types of employees? Did you set out from the beginning like, I wanna have a really diverse workforce and disrupt everything? You set that out from the beginning? 

Patrick Bet-David: Yeah. So you're not married, right?

Hala Taha: No. 

Patrick Bet-David: Okay. So when I was single, What I did as a man. So everybody's what are you looking for as in a woman? Oh, here's what I'm looking for. Men typically are not as clear of what they're looking for early on. You guys get it earlier than we do, right? One day, one of my agent's wife, Patty, I said, Patty, I've made up my mind.

I'm staying single for the rest of my life. I enjoy my own company. I'll have girlfriends, but I'm not getting married. Says before you decide to not get married, read this book called 101 Questions to Ask Before You Get Engaged. I said, okay, I'll read it. So I read the book. I'm like, wow, I thought I was looking for this in a wife, and I'm [00:31:00] looking for this.

It's crazy. I had no idea. I said, okay, this is cool. Now I know what I'm looking for. Once you know what you're looking for, your job is to tell the world what you're looking for. Why? Because your friends know to give you good referrals of what you're looking for. Your coworkers know what you're looking for.

There's a difference between saying, man, I'm looking for a hot girl to date. That's very general versus if you say, I'm looking for somebody who's between the ages of 27 to 32, who's never been married before, who is a worker career person? Somebody who's heights, they're between five two and five six.

Athletic likes to work out. See, the more I go, the more specific I'm being. So you may know a thousand different women, but I just eliminated 95% of 'em, and you're only thinking now about four girls that you may know that may be a good fit to go on a date with me, and I don't even know if they're gonna be interested in me.

But I went from a thousand to four. The more clear I got about the target audience I was looking for, [00:32:00] then I started telling everybody, I'm looking for young Hispanic women, competitive, sports minded, and be married with kids. This is what I'm looking for. Fantastic. They showed up. So you understand once you get clarity on the target market you're going after, then you are better at asking for referrals and your referrals are more focused rather than general.

Make sense? You say I'm your booker. I said, Well, I want to get some good guests on the podcast. And all of a sudden your booker sends you a list of names. You're like, I'm not interested in these guys. Can you gimme a little bit more clarity on who you're looking for? I'd like to have people, guests as a podcast.

Perfect. Lemme go find 'em. So I got more specific. I told everybody, the right people started showing up.

Hala Taha: I love that. Okay, so last question in terms of getting to know you before we get into your book, your next five moves. And so I found this quote from you that I really loved. You said reading an hour a day is only 4% of your day, but that 4% will put you at the top of your field within 10 years. And it actually reminded me of something that Steven Kotler taught me, which is that books are the best ROI [00:33:00] on your time. So authors, they spend hours and hours, maybe their whole lifetime creating a book, and then you get to digest it and just a handful of hours. So I'd love to understand how reading changed your life.

Patrick Bet-David: You said it earlier, right? 1.8 GPA. First time I finished a book cover to cover I was 21 years old. I've never finished a book cover to cover. I was 21 the first time I did it, and then once I read a business book, I'm like, I can't believe this isn't a book I've read now over 2000 books and God knows how many business articles and that led me to who I am today.

I think it's an edge. I remember one time one of my advisors came and stayed at my place and he went to the room that he had and he went into the shower. He's in the shower for 45 minutes and I'm like, I know this guy very, I've traveled the world with this guy that's a long ass shower to be in my bathroom.

What is this guy doing in my shower? So all of a sudden he comes out pumped up like, you good? He says, yeah. So what's up with you? He says, your wall in the shower is awesome. I said, which wall? I had all my affirmations on the [00:34:00] wall. Okay. So he went through all of my affirmations cuz I would laminate them and I would put it on all my showers.

So if I'm in the shower, I'm always reading my affirmations in the shower. Okay. While I'm in there, oh, this is a great idea, I'm gonna do the same thing, et cetera, et cetera. Those affirmations are byproduct of the books. I would read a book, I'd get a quote, I'd put it in the right. Be careful what you joke about or be sarcastic about because your spirit stops having faith and the words that come outta your mouth, boom.

That's power. Highest form of maturity becomes is when you become independent of others' opinions. Oh, that's awesome. Highest form of maturity, independent of others' opinions. I can handle more time. All of these things were being added one by one. Again, byproduct of books. And then eventually they stick.

The more tell you, tell it to yourself, they stick and you start becoming these quotes. 

Hala Taha: Yeah. Let's stick on the Law of Attraction because I know that you have a unique perspective on the Law of Attraction. Why is it not enough to just say affirmations? What else do you have to do? 

Patrick Bet-David: Listen, that's a cop out when people say, Law of Attraction, if I say good things are gonna [00:35:00] happen to me, no. That's not how this thing life works. The question about what's the key to success? I've asked God knows how many people and said, oh, the key to success. Marry the right person, work hard, save money, go to college, love people, believe in God. There's so many of these different keys to success, right? For me, it came down to a few different things.

One on myself to enjoy my own company is alignment, because if I live a life, the behavior of my life is aligned with my values and principles, I'm at peace. But if the way I live is different than the values and principles, I'm just outta whack. So I'm tough to be around. There's a bit of bitterness there. What is Pat dealing with?

All you have to know is that these, this is outta whack a little bit, right? So that was more alignment when people want to be, I feel people who are calibrating at the highest level and competing at the highest level, they're very aligned. Then the other side for me to key to success was outwork, out improve, out [00:36:00] strategize, and outlast.

Outlast, we're not really gonna know who the real competitors are for two decades, so most people are picking their rabbits way too early. It's gonna be 20 years till you're gonna know who's who. 20 years ago, nobody would've put Elon Musk on that list. 20 years later, it's Musk and Bezos. Those guys have made it very clear is who they are.

So social media influencers, we're not gonna know who the killer social media influencers are till 2035. We're not gonna know it's gonna go on for many more years. 2035 people gonna be, remember that one guy that used to all be right? Talked about it. Everybody talked about her on Twitter, Instagram, everybody talk about him I'm on a YouTube. 

I haven't heard that guy's name for the last five, 10 years. What happened? So the pool starts busy and then all of a sudden, only a few people make it at the top right. So outwork, out improve, out strategize, and outlast. Last takes 20 years. Strategize takes a while because it's gonna take a while for you to come up with good strategies, out improve if you want to compete with anybody, beat 'em and out [00:37:00] improving them in an outwork.

So Laws of Attraction is good. It's form of affirmations, but affirmations by themselves without outwork, out improve, out strategies, outlast means nothing. 

Hala Taha: We'll be right back after a quick break from our sponsors.

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I talked to David Meltzer and he talks about The Law of G.O.Y.A. Get Off Your Ass. You've gotta combine that with The Law of Attraction if you want results. Okay, so let's talk about your most recent book. It's called Your Next Five Moves. You wrote it in 2020 and the title of the book is related to chess and you say that you always need to be thinking steps ahead of your opponent to win. So talk to us about the vision and mindset of a chess master and how that is related to business. 

Patrick Bet-David: Life is all about sequencing. All [00:44:00] about sequencing. You and I may play the same game, but your moves may be better and my moves are not. You're gonna beat me. Meaning, I'm so impatient that a move that I'm supposed to do as move 19, I do that move three, I lose. 

Versus you are willing to be patient to do move 19 at move 19. You have an edge over me. I once watched this movie years ago. It was called Flash of Genius. I don't know if you've ever seen a movie Flash of Genius. It's the story of a guy who invented the windshield wiper. He had this wind intermittent windshield wiper that he invented.

So there's a scene in this movie where he's in court it's a must watch movie. He takes these intermittent wiper years ago when cars are driving and they can't get rid of the rain or the snow, and he invents this. It's a very big deal. He takes it to Ford, Chrysler, to everybody. They blow him off, but they take his patent and do it themselves and he never makes [00:45:00] the money on it.

So wait a minute, I came up with this. They're like, no, you just used three parts and put it together. He says, it doesn't matter. I came up with it. They blew him off and they were thinking, this guy's gonna be gone cuz he doesn't have the kind of money to go up against Ford's lawyers were, long story short, he goes to court against these guys.

He loses his wife, he loses his kids cuz he lost his house. Everything. He was that stubborn and his wife leaves them, takes the kids, the guy's got nothing left to his name. And then there's this one scene where he is standing up and he says, so you guys all sane that it's not a big deal? Cause I just took three parts and put 'em together and anybody could have done it.

How come you haven't done it all these years? And I was able to do it. He says, your Honor, and he looks at the jury, he says, I have a question for you. He grabs a Charles Dicken book. He grabs it. He opens it up, and he says, have you ever used the word sometimes? Yes. Okay. Have you ever used the word conflict?

Yes. Where's this guy going with this? Have you ever used the word love? Yes. [00:46:00] Every word that Charles Dickens used in the diction in his book we all know of, but the reason why this thing sold millions of copies and why we're not Charles Dickens and he is because he knew what order to put those words that we all know about.

We could have done the same thing, but he knew the order. Finally, the jury says, shit, this makes a lot of sense. The guy ends up getting 28 million. And I'm talking 28 million in '70s, in '80s. 

Hala Taha: Wow. 

Patrick Bet-David: 28 million today. 28 million during that time. And that's how the story ends. So what does this mean?

You asked the question about your next five moves. Everything is sequencing. If you start looking at life from a sequence, you'll make decisions in a different way. So what's better date first? Have kids? And then get married. No, date first, take your time, depending on your religion. Maybe live together for a couple months.

Maybe travel together to get to know each other. Then maybe get married after you are engaged. Maybe stay engaged for six months, [00:47:00] then get married. Maybe enjoy each other's company for a couple years. Then have kids. I'm not telling you that's what to do, but I'm just saying there's an element of sequencing.

You start a company, wow, I'm gonna go start a company and I'm gonna go out there and do X, Y, Z. Okay, think about what's the right sequence within the company. You're starting. Who do you go recruit first? Who's your first hire? Who's your fifth hire? How much money should you raise? Should you raise capital based on debt or equity or cash?

What should you do next? All of that is sequencing. So the people I'm convinced that went at the highest level, they obviously take the bigger risks, but they're much better at sequencing than everybody else. And that's why I wrote the book, your Next Five Moves. 

Hala Taha: This is super interesting. I've done like over 300 interviews and nobody has ever talked about this. This is the first time that we've talked about sequencing in terms of decision making. So you talk about five moves. Why is it five? Like, why isn't it 10? Cuz you might think, the more moves, the more, better off I'll be. So why five? 

Patrick Bet-David: I [00:48:00] originally suggested 15 moves because a grand master in chess knows your next 11 to 15 moves. I said, your next 15 moves. But then the publisher, Simon and Schuster said, that's gonna be intimidating. It's a lot easier if we go with five moves. I said, no problem. We go with five. But in my mind, I'm more 15 moves. So I think you gotta be thinking 15 moves ahead. By the way, this whole concept of your next five moves or your next 15 moves, it's not only within your health, it's also with your confidence.

I got four kids, so I have your next 15 moves with them. Sports, art, you know the interest that they have. It's your next 15 moves and your marriage. Your next 15 moves with your companies, your next 15 moves with the podcast, your next 15 moves with signing talent to bring it on board. Your next 15 moves are where I should buy my properties now in the companies buying domains.

It's not just one dimensional. It's your next 15 moves in everything you do. So essentially, if you unpack this and you come up with 15 moves [00:49:00] in every aspect of your life, you could come up with 150 different moves, but they're different. So imagine looking at your board and you come to your work and you're looking at the wall, and there's 15 moves for all different areas of your life.

You handle your day in a different way. You make decisions in a different way. You take on new hobbies in a different way. You're a little bit more hesitant about picking up a new hobby that could maybe take 12 hours of your week from you. You treat everything in a different way. You hire people in a different way.

You invest in a different way. Everything becomes slightly more intentional when you're looking at the sequencing. 

Hala Taha: Yeah. Now how do you go about deciding what order you're gonna do things? Because that seems like a lot of pressure. Like somebody might think what if I make the wrong move then all the other moves are wrong. What are your thoughts on that? 

That's part of the game though. You play Monopoly and if you go right off the bat to wanna buy Boardwalk and you spend all your money on Boardwalk and say, I go and buy Indiana, Illinois and maybe it's a little bit cheaper to buy that versus the other one, maybe [00:50:00] you shouldn't have bought Boardwalk right off the bat cuz it's only two pieces anyway.

Patrick Bet-David: It's in all the way at the end. So maybe you should have bought a, Atlantic, maybe you should have bought a couple different but that's part of the game. That's how game works. You got a kid and we all of a sudden save money and we have a thousand dollars. If you go spend all your money in one place, maybe you bought something that doesn't give you return and your other kid took that thousand dollars and invested and that thousand dollars now $1,800 judge's on you.

So many things we can do with our decisions that are short-term benefits. Without delayed gratification. Like I'll test my kids and I'll say the following, they'll say, daddy, can I have some ice cream? And I'll say, yeah, you can get one lick of chocolate ice cream right now. Or I can let you eat an entire ice cream at eight o'clock tonight when we get home.

What am I doing to the kid if he says one lick? I'm like, shit, this guy's thinking short term. I'm hoping the kid says What? Yeah, I'm not gonna take a lick. It's not worth it. I'll wait till the end of the night. Okay, cool. So I'll give you a scoop at the end of the night. I'm teaching the late gratification, right?

So we'll [00:51:00] be tempted to make some of the decisions right now that we wanted right now. But you as a leader, as somebody who's got a big vision, you gotta be patient to make the right moves in the right sequence. It's tough to do, by the way. Very hard to do. 

Hala Taha: Yeah, it sounds tough, but it's super, super helpful and interesting to hear you talk it through.

Okay, so we've got about 10 minutes left. So I'd love for you to walk through the five moves in achieving your goals. So that's master knowing yourself, master the ability to reason, master building the right team, master strategy to scale and master power plays. 

Patrick Bet-David: Number one, the most intimidating question I'll ask people when I'm working with them, I'll say, who do you want to be? And they're like, what do you mean? So who do you wanna be in life? I don't understand the question. Who do you want to be? You wanna be the one where all the pressure's on you. You wanna be a role player? You wanna be somebody that's doing something very big. How big of a life do you wanna live?

You wanna live a life where you got a nice condo and you're making 150 and you are somebody that works nine to five, and you're okay with that and there's zero envy in you if one of your friends [00:52:00] becomes a billionaire. Or do you wanna live a life where you wanna find out what your full potential looks like?

You are really curious, why did God make me talented in these following areas? Why'd you do this to me? God, why don't you give that talent to somebody else? I know I'm talented in these three areas. Why'd you give it to me? Man? I cannot live the rest of my life not knowing why that is. So who do you wanna be?

What kind of a life do you wanna live? That's a heavy question. When I ask somebody and they have to really think about that. There's a way to go through that process to know who you want to be in the kind of a life that you want to live. That's number one. I made a decision a long time ago who I want to be and the kind of a life I want to live.

I remember it's oh eight at this point. I've spoken in front of a hundred thousand people. I've spoken in front of audiences of 15,000. I'm in my late twenties. I've made good money. I drive a nice car. I've dated a girl that I wanted a day who's now my wife, who've been to get a nearly 13 years. I've traveled the world.

I've been in 40 countries at that age. I've seen a lot, right? I've partied. I've had a good time, all of it. But I have a feeling of emptiness. I'm like, [00:53:00] Okay, it's gotta be bigger than this. What is it? So I bring all my advisors together and we have a meeting and I say, guys, I want to know what I wanna do my life, what my real purpose is.

And it's just really driving me nuts cause I think it's bigger than what I'm doing right now. So I asked one guy who was a pastor, I said, do you think I'm supposed to be a pastor? And he says listen, I've been in the church game for a while. I can tell you for a fact you are not made to be a pastor.

Okay? You're a business guy. There's nothing about you that's a pastor. You just stick to what you're doing. I said, okay, good. That's not me. Hey do you think I'm supposed to go do? No, you're not. So eventually I need this one guy, George Will, who tells me, why don't you find out why 40 million immigrants come to America?

Why do we call this the American dream? But you've never heard of the Russian dream, the German dream, the French dream. Why don't they call 'em the British Dream or the Brazilian dream? Why is there only the American dream? Why go study it and talk about that for the rest of your life? So I went and I did and I couldn't stop talking about it.

That got me for me to realize who I want to be and what kind of a life I want to live. That inspired a hell out of me [00:54:00] to explain capitalism with the life that I've lived in a complete different way. Number two is the team to the ability to reason, right? So once I started going through the process that I was going through on improving as a leader, I noticed when I would sit with somebody and I would talk to them, I would try to catch this person's ability to reason.

If it's at a different level of mine and I want to pull that and draw that out of 'em, right? And you will know certain people vibrator at a certain level, and you're like, Ooh, there was a lot of depth in this guy. This was very different of a person I spoke to. I've never heard anybody explain it this way.

I want to get better at that because in the book, Power vs. Force, I highly recommend reading the book Power vs. Force. But he talks about all these different levels that people have. On which one produces the highest level of vibration, and the way he breaks it down is at the lowest level that we all have is shame.

Then it goes to guilt. Then it's apathy, grief, fear, desire, anger, pride. [00:55:00] Then the first level where it leads to power instead of force is courage. You have the courage to make mistakes. Then it's neutrality. You're able to entertain different conversations that people disagree with. Then it's willingness.

You are willing to work with people. You are accepting of people. You don't judge that much. Then it's you're able to reason, have an exchange of ideas. Then it's love. You love people. Then there's joy, peace, enlightenment being at the highest level. The way he explains it in this book, I got you. I sat there and I said, I have to be able to process issues better.

So I created a system on how to process issues, how to solve problems, how to handle issues, and that system is a transferrable system that I can give to other people, where some people overreact when something happens. There was no need to overreact, and sometimes people underreact and there is a need to overreact.

So people sometimes screw that reaction part up and that formulas in a book that you can find it. Then the third one is team building. Everything in life to me is recruiting. Recruiting [00:56:00] a running mate, as recruiting the right friends, recruiting the right mentor advisors, recruiting the right spouse, recruiting the right CO, president, investors, board members, everything to me in life as recruiting.

Then getting a formula on how to scale and your strategies, which kind of takes a little longer to get because I'll sit there and I'll have a con. We just hired a new talent, a very well-known talent that we just signed. We signed a three year contract with her. She just moved here from New York. We're excited about it.

She's been a big name on TV for a while and very well-known person on tv. So we just signed her and she came here and we had our entire team marketing team. There's 10 people in the room. You got merch, you got design, you got graphic, you got all this stuff, right? And she started talking about, here's what we do with this show.

Here's what we do with that show. I remember one time I was in this meeting, we did this and we did that, and we did this sitting. I'm like, got it. So that's what they did on NBC and that's what they did on Fox and that's what they did on CNN and that's what they did on ABC.

When she was in the room when these decisions were being made. Huh? I'm borrowing strategies and I'm writing them down. [00:57:00] But strategy, you have to catch it. If you're distracted, you'll miss it. Somebody can watch this podcast in five different ways. One of 'em like, ah, that was cool story. The other ones doing other things. Didn't catch anything we talked about. The other one's oh, that was interesting, the book. I'll get it. 

But somebody can be like, I never heard anybody explain it like this before. I'm gonna go buy that book. I'm gonna go read this book. The reason part makes sense. I have to be able to reason better, but okay, so everybody they've received, but if you screw it up and you missed it, you miss what you were supposed to get.

And the last but not least, the power plays capitalism. Business is dirty. You're naive. If you think, yo my gosh, everybody wants me to be a millionaire. Yeah, okay. And unicorns are gonna fly over celebrating your success. That's not how life works. You have to understand power plays. You have to understand if you start winning and taking market share away from somebody else, there's envious people out there.

Not everybody, but what? What I've learned is the killers of the killers at the top, they feel there's so much left that you're like, listen, you go get it as well. You win as well. Totally fine. . They don't come from the envious place. [00:58:00] But you have to be careful because if you, God forbid, create an enemy that's very envious, you have to try to minimize that.

You can naturally, it's gonna happen. You can't prevent that. But if you do, you have to learn how to play the power plays with that individual because anyways, it's a complicated world when it comes on to competition. And I write about that in point number five, move number five in a book. So that's how we describe the five moves.

Hala Taha: Amazing. So guys, we only scratch the service. I highly recommend you go get his book, your next five moves. I'll stick the link in the show notes. So Patrick, we ask a couple questions at the end of the show, can be super quick. We do something fun at the end of the year. So first, what is one actionable thing my listeners can do today to become more profitable tomorrow?

Patrick Bet-David: Okay. Unfollow people whose language produces a certain energy and feelings in you that is not necessary. Feels an hour of your day. Follow people whose language and methodology of processing issues elevates your thinking. You only [00:59:00] have so many hours of focus per day. You can't afford to lose it.

Train your negative friends and family to not call you often. The way you train them is if you pick up the phone call every time they call you, not only pick up every three calls, then go to every five calls, then every seven calls, then they'll stop calling you because they realize you're not calling pick.

Of course, I'm not saying, if there's an emergency, but you have to train negative people to not call you, because if you train them to call you and you pick up every time, they're gonna call you forever. Until you, they learn. This guy's not answering calls anymore. I know that sounds weird, but that's what I would say.

Hala Taha: No, it's true. You gotta protect your energy. Okay. What is your secret to profiting in life?

Patrick Bet-David: Reading people. I've had tens of thousands of meetings face-to-face and I like to read energy and people motives because you it's intuition. Obviously, you're not gonna get it right, but if you're right, 70, 80% of the time, you're in a good company.

Hala Taha: I love it. Thank you so much, Patrick. I know you have to run. Thank you so much for your time. 

Patrick Bet-David: This was great. Thank you so much [01:00:00] for having me on. It was fantastic. 

Hala Taha: YAP Fam, I loved the energy that Patrick Bet-David brought on the show and as we wrap up this conversation, there's a couple things that I wanna leave you with, and the first is this idea of the entrepreneur.

This is when you're developing new ideas and innovating at a company that you already work for. So you're not the actual owner of the company, but you have an owner's mindset these days. It seems like there's so much clout when it comes to being an entrepreneur and everybody wants to be an entrepreneur.

Even though I don't think that everyone is capable of being a successful entrepreneur because entrepreneurship is tough and you need a certain personality type, you need to be like very optimistic. You need to be a self-starter. There's a lot of qualities that you need to have to be an entrepreneur.

And I don't think that everyone has those qualities, and there's lots of ways to be successful aside from entrepreneurship, and I think that often people just take that leap into entrepreneurship without considering if they're the right type of personality to take [01:01:00] on the real risks and ups and downs that comes with being an entrepreneur.

And so I learned this the hard way. I was an entrepreneur when I was 25, and I was absolutely not ready for it. It ended up not working out. I didn't know how to monetize the big brand that I had built. While I don't regret the experience at all, because I believe that everybody should get experiences, and that experience taught me a lot of skills that I leveraged today.

I do feel like I jumped into entrepreneurship too early. I didn't have enough of the skills that I needed, and when I got into corporate, I actually became an entrepreneur because I had such an owner's mindset already that as soon as I got. into my first corporate job which was at Hewlett Packard. I did amazing because I was very innovative.

I thought outside the box. I didn't have all this institutional knowledge. I had a lot of like fresh knowledge from the internet and I just applied that at work and I really stood out and corporate was where I really started to level up my [01:02:00] business knowledge. I learned how to create PowerPoints, which I use now today, and I was known as the PowerPoint princess at one point because I made such good presentations.

I learned how to run social media pages. I learned how to do QBR quarterly business reports and more about finances and how to talk to leadership and how to write professional emails, and just all these little things that when you're an entrepreneur, you don't really get exposure to. Even the corporate lingo, I feel like has leveled me up as a business person because now I get on all these calls with other people who are in these corporate arenas, and I can communicate effectively with them.

I know how to talk to them, I know how they feel. I've been in their shoes before, and so something that I just want you to really just sink your teeth into, so to speak, is that it can be incredibly useful to work as an entrepreneur. At somebody else's company where you'll be learning and developing your skills on somebody else's [01:03:00] dime.

So when you work for a company, a lot of the times, hopefully you're in a situation where you're learning and you have access to training and resources, and sometimes they'll even pay you to go to school or they'll pay for your school. And so there's lots of different opportunities. When you're in these corporate structures for you to just learn and absorb and learn as much as you can before you decide if you ever do decide to take the leap, and you also might decide that there's no need to take the leap.

There's executives who are making half a million dollars a year. There is. CEOs of companies who rise up the ranks to become a C-Suite executive or a CEO who are making millions of dollars a year, which is much more than most entrepreneurs are making after they actually get their profit. It's lots of expenses that come with entrepreneurship.

So entrepreneurship is not always the answer. And I know we talk about entrepreneurship a lot on the podcast, but I do want [01:04:00] people to realize while entrepreneurship is amazing, it's not for every personality type and there's so many ways to be successful that's not entrepreneurship. And you can be successful in your core job and maybe have a small side hustle if you want to dabble in entrepreneurship and see if it's anything that you like or that you're good at. 

So everybody's journey is different, and truthfully, owning your own business is not cut out for everyone. So like Patrick says, it's crucial that we can honestly answer the question, what do you want to be in life? And once you know what you want, you can start strategizing those five next moves, whether they be working long-term for a company that you love, starting your own business or anything in between.

All right, Young and Profiteers, before we go, I did wanna leave you with some actionable advice and I wanted to remind you of Patrick's next five moves for anyone in business. And that's number one, master knowing yourself. Number two, master the ability to reason. Number three, master building the right team.[01:05:00] 

Number four, master strategy to scale. Number five, master power plays. And I wanted to stick on move number two, which is master the ability to reason. And that's because there's an incredible power in the processing of issues. And I think this is something that everybody should know. Entrepreneur, doesn't matter.

Before you act on a problem, you must first process what's happening. And the key success at all levels of business is to know how to process issues. Great processing of issues is an incredible skill, and that involves the ability to make effective decisions based on access to information at hand so that you can have the highest odds in your favor.

And that also takes subjecting every difficult choice problem or opportunity you face through a rigorous mental analysis. Also, playing out strategies, seeing the hitting consequences, and sequencing a series of moves to permanently solve problems. But to be great at processing problems, you need to take responsibility whenever you can.

[01:06:00] This is a very key. Great processors see their role in whatever problem has occurred. While poor processors often play the victim and blame others and external events on their problems, rather than seeing how they themselves contributed to the problem. So if you wanna be a great processor, you've got to take ownership, and there's other traits and tips that I can give in terms of being a great processor. 

You wanna ask a lot of questions because having more data leads to making better assumptions. Number two is that you don't care about being right or wrong. You're only interested in the truth. You also don't wanna make any excuses.

Wasting time and effort on why things went wrong is never productive. You wanna just look forward. You also wanna embrace challenges. You wanna be curious and you wanna prevent more problems than you solve. Spot the yellow flags before they turn red. The other thing that you can do to be a great processor is to learn how to negotiate.

We have a ton of negotiation content on YAP and [01:07:00] focused on permanently solving a problem. Don't just put bandaids on your problems. All right, so there you have it. Some actionable tips on the incredible power of processing issues so you can master the ability to reason. And before you know it, if you know yourself, if you can master the ability to reason, if you had the right team, implement scalable solutions and perform those power plays that we talked about in this episode with Patrick, your success will be inevitable.

Thank you so much for tuning into another amazing episode of Young and Profiting Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, if you found any value, drop us your feedback by leaving us a five star review on your favorite podcast platform. Apple Podcast reviews mean the most. I'd really appreciate if you took a couple minutes to drop us an Apple Podcast review and subscribe as well.

And if you haven't yet, I'd love to chop it up with you on Instagram. A lot of you guys are following me on Instagram and it's been really fun to meet all of my new listeners on there. You can find [01:08:00] me at YAP with Hala, or you can find me on LinkedIn. Just search for my name. It's Hala Taha, you can't really miss me on that platform.

Thanks for listening to another amazing episode of Young and Profiting Podcast this week, featuring Patrick Bet-David. This is your host, Hala Taha, signing off.