Why you’re always tired and the $4 Cure (Science Backed)

for me, this is real energy. This is not an energy shot. Energy shot is that thing you get at the gas station that fucks you up, which we're talking about.

Yeah.

But this is real energy.

That'd be a funny way to twist it.

It's not real energy.

That's actually a fun, you're good at this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But the reason why real energy is a good, a good positioning for this is because it immediately creates an antithesis.

Yeah.

And then you have an all situation in the customer's mind. Do I have you didn't say it.

Yeah.

But the implicit assumption is that's fake energy and then then this is real energy.

Oh.

Love the operation.

I understand.

Everyone on your team is impressive.

Oh good.

Yeah.

Right.

Right.

Okay, stop.

Let me explain what I meant there by an or situation because this is critical if you ever build a brand, especially if you're trying to build one in a very noisy market where it's already saturated.

When brands come into a market that is extremely busy like Perfect Ted here, they came into the energy market. One of the most important strategies you could adopt, which I actually mentioned to them in one of our first ever conversations many years ago,

was how do you create an or situation in your consumer's mind?

And what I mean by that is everybody in the industry currently stands for something. So everyone in the industry right now is like Red Bull.

How do you in your customer's mind convince them that you are something completely different?

And how you do that is by looking at the messaging and the values of the current incumbent, the person who is currently most successful in your targeted industry or niche, and presenting yourself in every way as the direct opposite of that.

And some great examples through history are like Brewdog, for example. Brewdog's whole marketing strategy was to present themselves as the opposite, the antithesis of commoditized beer.

So they would take beer to a field and blow it up. And what they're doing there is they're saying to potential beer drinking customers, you are either a Carling beer drinker or you are a Brewdog drinker.

You can't be both. When the values of those two companies are clear, when the ethos, the personality, when the brand stands for something, it stands against something.

So the way that you create an or situation in your customer's mind and give them a choice is to really stand for something. And Brewdog back in the day really stood for punk, it stood for independence, it stood for being edgy, et cetera.

And even Perfect Ted have done a very similar thing. If you look here on the can, it says healthy energy. It is green, it is bright, it is Gen Z, but it says healthy energy.

Now, if they're healthy energy, what does that make the rest of the category?

So they too are creating an or situation. The customer walks down the aisle in the supermarket and says, okay, I can have healthy energy or something else.

And that's really why it's so important if you're a disruptive new brand in a market to stand for something, because if you clearly stand for something and that thing you stand for is a value in your customer's mind, you will create a winning or situation where they either can have healthy energy or punk beer or the opposite. And if the positioning is good, then you'll probably win.

And in Perfect Ted's case, I think they're probably the fastest growing drinks brand of their type RTD across Europe and they were recently valued at 200 million dollars, which is insane.

Okay, I've got a meeting right now with a company from Dragon's Den that hasn't actually aired yet.

So I can't show you their face or their name.

They are a company that put digital prints onto clothing. And they want to know if they could be using AI to do exactly that.

And would their customers actually care?

They're scared that they'll lose their customers if their customers know that AI made the digital image that goes onto the clothing that the customer then buys.

And this is really important for their business because this is the difference between their business being profitable or not profitable.

Right now, the business is unprofitable and one of the key reasons why is because they're spending so much money on getting digital images made, but now in the world of AI, they don't need to spend that money anymore.

My job is to convince them that actually AI is their friend in this case and actually, I don't think their customers care that much as to how the image was made.

They care that the image was good. And often there's so much romance, especially when innovation shows up around how things are done, but I think in this case, the customer is attached to the end product and not the process.

I'm going to go talk to them now, come with me.

We did that with customers. So let's say we used for like AI generated for one customer, would you be upfront about the fact that it was AI generated or would you just not mention it?

Someone came to my office 10 years ago and he was he's a billionaire.

And he told me the story of the record store industry. And he told me this record store CEO said to him,

we'll always be in business because people love music.

He was right. People loved music. People didn't love getting in their car, going in the rain, standing in a queue, and Apple Music came along and killed them. You come back five years, six years later, the business is dead.

And I say that story because it reminds me to always question why people are coming for me. And when you ask people why their customers buy from them, it tends to be really romantic.

But actually, you figure out what wiped them out, we find out that it was actually some unchangeables, speed, convenience, price and quality.

I very frequently get the question, what's going to change in the next 10 years?

And that is an interesting question, it's a very common one. I almost never get the question, what's not going to change in the next 10 years?

And our retail business, we know that customers want low prices. It's impossible to imagine a future 10 years from now where a customer comes up to me and says, Jeff, I love Amazon, I just wish the prices were a little higher.

Because you can build a business strategy around the things that are stable in time.

So I try and always try and remove romance because the world is changing so quickly and romance is what the innovator's dilemma, which is a book you have to read, shows through history, the incumbent that dies, the person who's most successful that dies, is the one that focuses on getting marginally better at what they're doing now and overlooks or underestimates a disruptive innovation coming from underneath.

And some kid in their bedroom with no romance and no preconception of history, they always go for the disruptive innovation.

And just the last sentence on this is, they looked at all of these industries from digging excavator to micro disks and they asked the question, why is it never the case that the incumbent takes part in the disruptive innovations because of what you've described, there's a fear of losing your existing customer base which keeps you trapped in your current model.

So you have to run almost tangential experiments and try to disrupt your own business.

So 100%.

There is a secret team here at Flight that I've never told the world about that I'm about to tell you about because it's so relevant to that meeting that you just saw.

So this team here is called Flight X and it comprises of roughly five people. They are not at their desks right now, but I'll put a photo of them up on the screen right now so you can see.

And everything I just said there about how history shows that in business, you get killed or you become successful by being naive enough to disrupt the incumbent is why Flight X exists. Our business is going to get killed by some kid in their bedroom that doesn't know the rules of the industry, doesn't give a fuck and is scrappy and fast and experiments.

So can we build a team that act like a kid in their bedroom, even though the company now has more than 100 people?

And the way that you do that is you create a sub team that have a different set of rules. They don't have the same processes, the same sign off, the same bureaucracy. They have their own budget and they report directly to the founder.

And this is what Thomas Watson did at IBM. He created a team called the Wild Ducks, which I remember Mark Andreessen talking about.

They had this category of people they called wild ducks. Um, and this was an idea that the founder Thomas Watson had come up with.

They were the people who could make new things. And there were eight of them. And they got to break all the rules and they got to invent new products, they got to go off and work on something new, they didn't have to report back. Um, they got to pull people off of other projects to work with them. They reported directly to the CEO, they got whatever they needed, he supported them in doing it and they were glass breakers and, you know, they showed up the one in Austin at the time was this guy Andy Heller and he would show up in, you know, jeans and cowboy boots. And it was fine for Andy Heller to do that and it was not fine for you to do that, right?

And so the expectation is they deliver, right? They they their job is to invent the next breakthrough product.

But we IBM management know that the 6,000 person division is not going to invent the next product. We know it's going to be crazy Andy Heller and his um, and his cowboy boots.

That model worked for 50 years.

And so this is exactly why I created the Flight X team. And they are currently working on killing our business. They're trying to disrupt the business from within.

I remember hearing a story that Steve Jobs did a similar thing and he actually put a pirate flag on a building next door and moved into that team, the Macintosh team who were focused on disrupting the core business.

And that's pretty much what we've done here.

If you don't kill yourself, some kid in their bedroom right now is going to kill you. So be the kid in the bedroom.

That's Flight X.

How are you, mate?

How are you, man?

How are you?

Yeah, good.

Yeah, good.

Healthy, happy.

I'm I'm happy, I'm healthy. I'm always a little bit tense before these uh these events because I'm like.

Are you?

I'm not like you. I'm like.

Yeah.

I want to get done.

We used in Belgium and I was saying I was it's funny because before I went up on stage, I realized that I didn't feel anything.

Yeah.

So before I went up on stage, I was trying to hyperventilate myself. I was like and make me feel something.

I I heard about this law called and it basically says that if you are understimulated, you perform badly.

Yeah.

If you're overstimulated, you perform badly. So you need to be in like a middle stimulated.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's this curve, this bell curve. It says like optimal performance happens there.

Right.

So I was before I went up on stage at Belgium, I was thinking like you you feel zero.

Really?

Like now I feel zero.

Think back, when when was the last time you felt the.

Diary of a CEO live shows. That's when I really felt.

At the live show.

Yeah.

He's an expert in culture, leadership and inequality. So if we can just give them a warm welcome to the stage.

I think one thing that I've never said that that I want everybody to hear is like don't let LinkedIn tell you what your company culture should be.

Don't let LinkedIn tell you you're a bad person because you have certain expectations. I think that's really, really important because, you know, as founders, ultimately, you have to pay the price for a failed business and for things going wrong. So I really want to lift that weight off founders in particular because there was a lot of signaling that went on that I just think was really it was it was bad for everybody.

It created cowards like running businesses. I was a coward for a long period of time in my career.

And then what I'd see in my portfolio companies is this phenomenon I called quiet dissatisfaction where the founders coming to me and complaining about their team. And I'm saying, have you told them what you expect? Nah, nah, nah, nah.

I'm like, so you're telling me about Jenny on the reception, she's not meeting your expectations, but Jenny does not know your expectations. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're not having another conversation until you go and have a conversation with Jenny about your expectations. So Jenny can figure out if she wants to meet them and if she can meet them or if she wants to leave.

Much of the game in business is saving time.

You you come to learn that, you know, I think further along in my career, I was like, actually, the the the cost I'm paying repeatedly, that's the highest price, isn't a failed experiment.

It's actually the time I'm wasting making a decision or avoiding a decision or avoiding a conversation.

So the the newer version of me in the last five years is just orientated to the most optimal thing that will will save our company time, because if we can save time, we can do more.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, good.

Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Nice to meet you.

Thank you.

Great one. Mandy, um is 50 is 57.

Um she's I start my business at 42. What advice would Stephen give to older entrepreneurs? Ps. I think I'm 32 in my head.

Okay, so the first thing I'm going to say is um I was really unhappy about the use of the word older entrepreneurs.

And I know where it comes from because there's like a there is a stigma in society and there's like very real prejudices. So it's a very real thing. But I want you to make that their problem, not yours.

I was a young black man starting in business with an afro, going into rooms with people that did not look like me.

Um I was well aware that they might have prejudices against me, that they might be judging me in some way.

But I was also very clear that that was their problem.

And not mine.

I was not going to allow it to be mine.

And because the the the psychology and the science on stereotype threats is profound.

If they ask a black person, for example, to write their race on a test before they do the test.

Think about what happens when a test score begins to define a person.

And there's a there's a stereotype about that particular race and that that subject matter, people do significantly worse on the test.

Psychologist Claude Steele calls this phenomenon stereotype threat.

If they don't write them their race on the test, then they do the same as everybody else. And the same applies for gender. They've done these studies. I wrote about them in my book.

We don't have to believe in the stereotype. Merely knowing that others could judge us because of our social identity is enough to distort our performance.

And it just goes to show that actually a lot of the time, the limitations are being applied by ourselves on ourselves.

Even though I know it's a very discrimination is a very, very real thing, I'm still going to give 110%. And I'm going to I'm going to try and maybe counteract some of your prejudices and actually your lower expectation of me and then where I deliver is going to create impact.

Because the gap between where someone expected you to be because you're older or because you're this or you're that and where you came in was impact.

And I would see that. I'd walk into a room and no one was paying attention. And then as I I was so far above their expectations of me that they were queued at 18 years old. I remember going to that conference in London. They queued at the end of the stage to give me business cards. And that's how I raised my my money for my first company at 18 years old, the one that that guy Chris worked for.

So yeah, that's what I'd say.

Nice.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Can't you say that diamond in my hand, yeah.

I might just decide to slide on my enemies.

I go along on a glide for the hell of it.

I bring a different vibe when I'm stepping in.

Editing can feel chaotic, especially when you're racing to meet a deadline.

So today, Descript have challenged me to complete this week's edit in a speeding rally car.

So obviously, cutting down long speaking clips can be pretty stressful.

But with Descript's remove gaps feature, I can cut it down in seconds.

Oh my God.

Descript is so easy to use that Andy, the rally driver, has actually offered to finish this edit for me.

Oh, what you.

I find it easier to edit than you do to drive.

Descript's text-based editor means that Andy can just highlight the best parts of Steve's talk and cut them out straight away.

The last bit I need to do from this talk section is make sure that Steve sounds great.

Now, with the Studio Sound feature, I can enhance the audio perfectly with one button, no plugins required.

So it's super easy.

Sounds pretty good. Descript have done a great job. Oh my God.

Last little bit.

Done.

So I stepped into this car with a 45-minute clip and with Descript, I've edited it down to one minute long.

Take the chaos out of editing. Start creating today with Descript.

Link in description below.

much of our return of the the behind the diary is to really give you a full picture of what it takes to run a podcast, build businesses and all of those things in between.

I sincerely hope that there's people listening to this who are at the very start of their own journeys and they're trying to figure out a few of the big questions I was trying to figure out.

I guess question one is what does it take? So what does it take to pursue your dream, what to achieve your dream?

Question two, what information do I need to get there?

And then question three, what does it look like when I get there?

I do wonder sometimes, I do wonder. I think to myself, I think how long are you going to do this for?

Like I did that whole like social chain phase between the age of like 18 and 27. I thought like you get money and you relax and you chill out and you enjoy it and you just lose it, you just lose the chip on your shoulder, you just lose the fight.

But I'm so fucking fine up at the moment, it's ridiculous. And I have been for.

I'd say a couple years now.

I feel like I'm possessed.

Like I really just I'm so fucking focused.

Since you woke up, you're working. It's insane.

This is insanity.

You think I'm insane?

I think you're insane.

For me, this is fun. For me, this is like this is my fun.

If I'm not in work, this is what I'd be doing if you weren't here.

I know if I'm not here, you will.

Yeah.

And then you texted me and then I'm like and then you're like and you wonder why how I can just be like I didn't reply because I'm like especially into something.

You're hypnotized.

Yeah, I've been hypnotized, literally.

I say I call it, I call it being possessed.

And I like I understand how weird this sounds to people that don't understand me, but I just love building businesses.

I just love doing this.

I love what I'm doing and so people that.

Don't aren't like me, that aren't like don't have the wiring in the head like me will look at this and go, oh, it's so sad, like he's such a sad person and um he's promoting hustle porn and.

He is encouraging people to um not have work life balance.

Like I completely understand.

I'm not encouraging you to do fucking anything.

I'm encouraging you to do whatever it is that makes you happy on Saturday at 1:00 a.m.

The thing that currently makes me happy is doing this. It is building my business.

That is the thing that genuinely makes me happy.

Not like I'm I'm saying it so that it looks good on camera. Genuinely makes me happy.

This is relaxing.

It's relaxing to you.

You know, a weirdo.

You know, a weirdo.

I find it, I find it relaxing. So I just find it fun.

I was going to say then I don't want to live like this forever. It's not to say I'm not happy because I feel really happy.

Um it's that I can't live like this forever because I'm coming into that season of life now where I want to have kids.

I want to have four, five, six kids, as many kids as I possibly can.

I won't be able to do this forever, which is okay, you move into different seasons of life.

But maybe there's a part of me that's telling myself that I'm really going to go for it for this season of life, really try and lay great foundations.

And then maybe maybe things will change. Maybe I'll change things a little bit in the next phase of life.

I want to just end on a point, which I've kind of mentioned already, but I think it's so, so important. Success is not copying me.

Success is not copying someone else on the internet that you follow.

Success is doing exactly what makes you happy.

The question isn't what are you doing it for.

The question is.

What are you doing?

And by that, I mean this is it.

The process.

Sitting here at 10:00 p.m. at night time after a long day podcasting, working, investing, building my business, going to the gym,

difficult conversations, calling my girlfriend, looking at the hiring form, looking at pitch decks, this is it.

This is the destination.

And I think the sooner you realize that it's actually the process itself that is the podium, the sooner you focus on the most important thing, which is like designing a sustainable existence over the long term that you enjoy, that pushes you, that challenges you, that causes you L's and W's.

This is it. And this is why I do what I do because I love it.

I love the doing.

I love the doing and I love who I'm doing it with.

Look how bad I am at videography.

Like we need videographers.

Look, look, this is terrible.

This is terrible videography, but I'm going to record the whole episode like this.

Until we hit 400k subs. I'm going to record the whole episode, only mouth.

Only 350k subs? Okay, deal. Only mouth.

That's what you're getting. You'll get the eyes when we hit 400k.

How's that sound?

Will, when you edit this, please make my teeth look whiter.