“Is this the logical thing to do or is this me resorting to what’s comfortable again?”
Realizing that we’ve been playing small can light a fire in us to go big… To take our life and business to the next level.
But we have to make sure that we control the flame and that emotional excitement doesn’t override our logic.
In today’s installment of The Coaching Series we are joined by Chris, who’s decided to evolve his trading business and form a hedge fund.
He shares his dilemma about whether he should 2-3x the current business with a couple easy tweaks before selling it and moving on… or if that is just him procrastinating on starting the hedge fund and going BIG.
We covered 2 main frameworks to help him clarify his decision and help him make sure that he makes the correct long term decision instead of letting his emotions get the best of him.
Itamar Marani 0:00
Is this the correct logical thing to do? Or am I resorting to what's comfortable again? So in today's episode, we do another installment of the coaching series and we're joined by Chris. Chris, we're going to be covering why sometimes we have to be cautious of not trying to overcompensate for past failures. So here's the deal, Chris is in the process of going from a trading business that he owns to actually starting out his own proper hedge fund. And what he wants to ask is, should actually be making these couple tweaks that I realized that if I make them, they can be very easy, these low hanging fruits like a two to three exit business, or should just go for the hedge fund is me trying to say, Oh, these are tricks, I should do actually a way for me to again, do what's comfortable, like I did in the past, and not really go for the big things. And in this episode, we break down why sometimes our past we try to overcompensate for us, and it can lead us the wrong way we share two frameworks and how to clarify is this something that's logical for me to do is to correct action, or just an emotion that I'm trying to suppress. So I don't have to feel that way. And I can tell myself No, and doing the big things that I'm proud of. So I hope you enjoy the episode. And again, thank you very much for Chris for coming on, and sharing so openly.
Itamar Marani 1:02
One more thing before we start guys. So there's some good news and some bad news. The good news is that we've upgraded the mic in order to give you guys a better audio experience. But the bad news is, this was the first episode that recorded with it. And I forgot to click the button that records it with the new mic. So apologies for the choppy audio on my part, during this podcast from the next episode onwards, we're going to have much better audio quality for you guys. So thanks for your patience and enjoy the episode.
Itamar Marani 1:27
Let's get to it. So what's on your mind?
Chris Dover 1:29
So the, um, I Cut The Check for start doing the work to start a fund and get going on it. And along with that part of my process was, okay, I have this current business that has value. And I need to get myself out of that business in order to move into doing the fund work. And I had a number of conversations, a handful of conversations with different people who were looking to acquire the business in a couple of different ways. And I realized that there was a lot of really low hanging fruit that could be done on the business, that actually would have high impact, all I had to do is let's say spend six months of work, I could triple or quadruple, that the opportunity for doing such a thing is like it seemed like a smarter play with high impact. One of the, you know, part of doing the fund, and part of all of that is coming into the fund with your own capital, and having it being, you know, significant enough to, in addition to paying the legal fees and everything getting up and running. So as I was doing that, I realized, in addition to that there were a lot more expenses that I hadn't fully discovered at the time. So about a week ago is when I reached out and said, okay, am I doing the thing again, where instead of taking the homerun swing I'm taking I'm going for a double here. Because even I have to question.
Itamar Marani 3:16
Yeah, so great question. So basically, from what I'm understanding, you're asking, should I actually go ahead with the fund? Or should I wait a minute, optimize this thing and get a big drag that out of this, that would leverage the funds so to speak? Is that accurate?
Chris Dover 3:30
That's, that's about yeah, that's that. And then there's been there's one other thing on the side of that, where I had a chance to speak with Ben about this. And perhaps him and I might work together on a situation that would be in the sense of, you know, the business that I triple in value or whatever becomes an asset into the fund. And we do a private equity version, as opposed to the hedge fund version.
Itamar Marani 3:56
Okay, so let me ask you this. If somebody else was in your situation, you knew the exact all this details and all that. What would you tell them as the smart let's say, two or three year play? If you're looking at a two three year trajectory? What would be the smart play for?
Chris Dover 4:16
A smart two or three year play? Yeah, you know, when you look at it for two to three years, it makes a lot of sense to just say, well, let's, you know, like, continue to 25% time work on the fund. And more than, you know, 75% time working on the business is actually more than I had been, like really focused, I should say, more than I've done in the past. So that's, that's in that framework. It's very easy. Makes a lot of sense. Right? So
Itamar Marani 4:46
also, would you tell them there's no cut off if they do the 75% work on the old business for six months or eight months or until there's certain benchmarks that are hit like busy you say, Okay, these are all the low hanging fruit. Once we've knocked these out, then trends question. Is there anything along those lines? You can also clarify?
Chris Dover 5:03
Yeah, absolutely. I, you know, I think six months of concentrated effort, you know, that would be six one month sprints. And right away, as we talked about earlier, I've had huge impact. Just yeah. Coming right in. And so that's enjoyable. That's super enjoyable. It's rewarding. Knowing that it's frustrating to knowing that it was sitting there, and I did just go pick it up. Because I was, yeah, for the for whatever reasons. But cool.
Itamar Marani 5:40
So Can I chime in? Sir? So I think what you need to be cautious of, is that you're gonna have a desire to overcompensate for where in the past, you felt like I've kind of played smaller, I've held myself back. And now instead of just saying, Okay, what's the logical like, smart, three year two year play? Emotionally? You know, am I just playing small again. And it's important to be aware that you're not trying to overcompensate for that. And by doing that, you're gonna override what's the logical correct thing to do? Because it sounds like honestly, you're saying, you know, there is a lot of long, low hanging fruit and what you said earlier today on the call that that's an amazing increase, or very little work. And it's going to compound with each other. I think it makes sense. Like, and especially you're saying, I would tell somebody else in this situation. Listen, just take six one month sprint. So it's not an infinite thing, not just like, I'll keep working on it, and then see where you're giving yourself some kind of timeline? I think it makes absolute sense.
Chris Dover 6:40
Yeah, yeah, putting that way, it really clarifies it. I don't know why I didn't even think about looking at it more than six months out.
Itamar Marani 6:48
Because you want to go in this is a this is something important to be cautious of as well, because you really have this desire to go in, okay, I want to go bigger, I want to go for homeruns. But like, Don't risk everything, foolishly, so to speak. Just don't let that emotionality of wanting to go override your logic and say, Is this the correct thing to do in the long term perspective? And especially as you're saying, Okay, I do have a timeline, I'm not just going to stick with this. I think that'll give you that peace of mind. What I was concerned initially, you say I can just keep working on it. 25% 75%. I feel like that would cause you to get impatient because you're like, I'm playing small. Again, I don't like this, this doesn't feel nice. This doesn't feel aligned with the person I want to become the business I want to grow. But because you have a timeline is 36. One month spreads, you can recognize okay, this is the correct strategic play, I am actually going big by doing this correct thing right now. Does that make sense?
Chris Dover 7:41
Yeah. So it makes a lot of sense. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.
Itamar Marani 7:46
I think that's the payment is pretty simple. Like you just figured out ahead of time. What are those spreads? First do an audit? Are you gonna have somebody else do an audit for you, somebody you trust it? What is the low hanging fruit here? What do you think is the low hanging fruit I should focus on? That you knock those out, you figure out what's the time to knock those things out, and then recognize, okay, that's gonna be the time to do the transition.
Chris Dover 8:09
That's the that's the game I ran on my own. I haven't even asked somebody to come in and do it for me. I just did it on my own. And that's exactly where I, of course, with our session last week, with the month planning on the month, I, I was just doing that process of auditing my business. And I said, Well, what if I just doubled it? Because, you know, what, if I just went for a double this month in my subscribers and see see what that would do? And just putting out a little bit of effort on it actually did it and that as I kept going, I realized, Okay, I've got a lot of low hanging fruit here. So yeah, I would definitely want to bring somebody more experienced on or from a different unemotional perspective.
Itamar Marani 8:51
It's exactly that it could be someone who's actually not as good as you. But just because you're not emotionally invested in, they'll be able to see some other things and you can just get a more objective perspective, these are low hanging fruits, and these are not low hanging fruits. And therefore these are the things that could pull you just be comfortable to work on, but they're not actually gonna make a big impact. Yeah.
Chris Dover 9:12
Yeah. Yeah. Clear? Absolutely.
Itamar Marani 9:19
That definitely not the questions about this.
Chris Dover 9:22
I mean, it felt a little existentially not existential, but it felt as if I was just and working through it, but this was seven days ago when we you know, I said, Hey, let's let's do this. I needed that time. I actually need it that was it was ideal amount of time had I actually not had I done the work. If I didn't do the work of you know, analyzing my business and doing the other things. I probably wouldn't even be having this conversation because I would have just wiped it in the past now. So yeah, I don't think we need to.
Itamar Marani 9:57
Right. So I want to kind of I do want to summarize a a valuable lesson here, because you're probably going to meet this lesson in a different way moving forward, it's kind of principle is that you have a desire now to really go big. You're you're saying like, you're gonna say, I'm frustrated myself that I didn't do these things before. And well, that's great. You also don't want to let that confuse you, for mine straying away from a logical place. So whatever your situation like, Am I just holding myself back for? Am I doing the right setting here, for example, I'm investing in the current bits that are going for the next one simple way to ask yourself is, what would I recommend somebody else do on a long term basis? That immediately puts yourself out of it and cause you think of it bigger and broader? Because this is probably going to come up in a different way as well down the road. And that's just the way you can keep things in check to make sure okay, I'm making really smart, practical decisions that are helping.
Chris Dover 10:46
Yeah. Yeah.
Itamar Marani 10:50
Cool. So per actions, do you want to put in for the month of April to your goals? That one find somebody to do an external audit? And to, to actually set this into your calendar for the next six months and break down? What are those sprints? Is that feasible to lock in? By April that you'll have locked in the calendar and you found somebody who does external audit?
Chris Dover 11:15
Yeah, I have a pretty I've actually done a good amount of that six months sprint type work, I actually did it down to closer six weeks. So that actually, probably by the end of April, I would I would redo, redo what I would look at exhibit, give me a full month of data and do it. But yeah, I absolutely. So if I give myself October is my six month mark. So yeah, so right now, action item, one would be find somebody to do an external audit, actually, m two would be run April. Action Item three would from the results of April, plan out the next five months.
Itamar Marani 12:08
It could be also that the audit you give him because you don't really know how much low hanging fruits are right now. So you can ask him during his audit. What would you do if you only had three, three months to work on this business? What would be the most crucial thing, then if you had six months, what will be the most crucial things you would do in the latter three months, then he can really break things down from that perspective as well. Because you don't want to give him just an arbitrary number of six months because he might recognize you know what, there's only a couple of things to do here and then I can kind of give you more stuff to do, but it won't really be impactful.
Chris Dover 12:37
Yeah. Okay. Excellent.
Itamar Marani 12:43
Go figure it out. That man ready to go on.
Chris Dover 12:46
I'm excited. Awesome. super impactful as always, Itamar.
Itamar Marani 12:52
Thank you for listening to the emotional fortitude podcast. Please tell a friend if you enjoyed it and found value in it. Three last things before you go though. If you feel like someone else with your exact skill set and abilities could be accomplishing more than you currently are. That's a mindset and emotional access issue. And here are three ways I'd love to help you conquer any internal limitations go big and win one three quick ideas Tuesday newsletter. It's a weekly email with three quick ideas around one aspect of elite performance and how to fortunate differently to get better and faster results. People say it's the most thought provoking and impactful two minutes they spend in their inbox each week. It's easy to sign up to and easy to cancel and you can sign up at Itamar marani.com/three ideas to is the emotional fortitude micro course. It will help you build the emotional fortitude and conflict tackle any goal it's the complete nothing held back emotional fortitude system and five simple parts. It's all under five minutes each module. See it, use it and when and it's completely free at Itamar marani.com/course. And number three Lastly, if you want to dive in and aggressively level up the Reno mindset accelerate might be for you. It's a six week intense sprint for entrepreneurs who are up for dramatic transformation to an interactive live program where we'll be working with me in a very hands on way to get clarity on what you want. Build an effective mindset to optimize for your goals and establish elite emotional fortitude that will allow you to overcome any fear or doubt that can get in your way. You can learn more at Itamar marani.com/accelerator. You can find all of these links in the show notes below or go to Itamar marani.com and have a look around. Until next time, Who Dares Wins
