[This transcript was generated from YouTube’s auto-captions, not a verified human/AI-diarized transcript. Timestamps and wording may contain errors, and speaker labels below are Claude’s best-effort inference from context, not confirmed against audio. Please review before publishing.]

Real Life Superpowers.

Neil: In business, I learned this at a very early age: you don’t make money by making money, you make money by solving problems. If you can solve problems, your solution’s good, it’s quick, easy to use, ideally affordable, you can do well. You know, you don’t have to innovate, you just have to solve problems.

Host: Hey everyone. With millions of followers across the world through his blog, podcast Marketing School, and social channels, it’s very unlikely you’re not familiar with the work of today’s guest. Neil Patel is a New York Times bestselling author, named a top influencer on the web by the Wall Street Journal, one of the top 10 marketers in the world according to Forbes, recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama, no less, and recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 35 by the United Nations. Entrepreneur magazine says he created one of the top 100 brilliant companies out there. He’s the co-founder of Crazy Egg, Hello Bar and KISSmetrics. He helps companies like Amazon, NBC, Microsoft, Airbnb, Google, General Motors, Salesforce, HP and Viacom grow through marketing.

[Music]

Host: Neil, welcome to Real Life Superpowers.

Neil: Ah, thank you guys for having me.

Host: It is such an honor. I’ll start with my usual question, which is: what are you up to these days?

Neil: You know, just building my ad agency, Neil Patel Digital, and working on my software projects.

Host: Ubersuggest, which I personally use, and I know many other marketers do.

Neil: Thank you.

Host: Let’s take a step back, because these days you’re like the hot shot, you’re the success story. You’ve been endorsed by Obama, by probably every tier one publication in the world, you’re on the top of your game. And how did it all start? I know that you started your own business when you were 16, and you had a need for marketing, and then you realized you’re not getting any answer to that need. You were basically trying to find a solution for yourself, because other solutions just weren’t cutting it. And that’s one angle of the story. But I’m also curious, you were 16, other people were playing basketball or whatever at school, and you were starting your own business. So tell us about that a bit.

Neil: Yeah, I grew up in middle class America, and I just wanted a better life, and I couldn’t qualify for any high paying jobs. So I decided to be an entrepreneur, because I didn’t know any other way to make more than five, six dollars an hour than being an entrepreneur, because all the jobs I would apply for, that’s what they would pay 16 year olds. And then over the years I learned entrepreneurship is really tough, it’s not that easy to succeed. But with just years and years of being persistent and keeping at it, eventually I figured it out, and I’ve done okay.

Host: You said you were middle class and you had to make the money. Why would you have to make money? What was so bad?

Neil: I didn’t have to. I was lower middle class. I just wanted a better life.

Host: Why?

Neil: I just wanted it. You know, I saw people around me. See, the area I grew up in, we grew up in the middle class area of a rich county or city, and you would see people with fancy things, like a BMW or Mercedes, and as a kid I wanted some of those things. I eventually learned they’re useless and you don’t need them, but at the beginning, when I was young, I wanted those things. I don’t know why, I just did.

Host: So what would you want now, if they’re useless?

Neil: A bigger home, a bigger backyard, which is very expensive in Los Angeles, sadly. A little bit too expensive. A bigger backyard costs you around 10 million dollars. So things add up. But during COVID that would be nice. I don’t have that. I’m just saying, because of COVID I realized, huh, having a backyard would be nice.

Host: Well, that makes sense. And back to the age of 16. So you’re starting a business, your goal is money, and you’re realizing that you’re not getting the solutions from third-party services, and you’re thinking, “I can do this.” How do you get the confidence to even try?

Neil: Well, I was broke and frustrated. I had no more money to pay the third-party services. It wasn’t even about the confidence, it was more so that I had no other choice.

Host: And then what? You sort of started exploring? How did you go about figuring out what to do?

Neil: Yeah, so I was reading a lot of websites, I started implementing what I was learning, I was experimenting on my own sites. I was starting to get results, and I started getting more traffic to my site, and I was like, oh, this is amazing. Still wasn’t making any money, but I at least cracked the traffic. And then I’m like, this entrepreneur stuff is really hard, but I’m pretty decent at this traffic stuff, maybe I should do more of that instead.

Host: And then you did?

Neil: And then I did. I would pick up the phone and literally call people who were ranking on Google, not on page one, but page three, four or five, and cold call and pitch them. I would call the people who were doing the paid ads and try to sell them on my services. Some of it I would do performance based, some I would offer a guarantee, some I would say, “I’ll do work for free for a month, and if you like it, then pay me after.” I was trying to do whatever, just to get customers.

Host: And this is in high school?

Neil: Correct, yes.

Host: So I’m guessing, what’s the ratio of hearing no to yes at this stage?

Neil: I don’t know the ratio, but it was really bad. Almost everyone said no or ignored you.

Host: So how did you know you were good at it?

Neil: I didn’t know I was good at it, other than I got traffic to my own website. I’m like, I did this for my own website, I can do this for anyone. I was more naive than knowing if I was good at it or not.

Host: And it didn’t sort of throw you back to hear all those no’s? Did you just keep going?

Neil: No, because I look at it this way. If I call a lot of people and I pitch them a service, if they all say no, what’s the worst case that happened? Wasted some time, didn’t really lose any money, I was still where I was at that time. If someone said yes, I would have a better life and I’d make more money. The worst case scenario, the no, I had nothing to lose.

Host: Because you already had the no.

Neil: Yeah. Like, if I got a ton of no’s: make no more money, be in the same place. Instead of playing basketball, I wasted a few hours each day.

Host: I’m sorry, I love your humility, but I’m looking for something here, which is, you know, what’s not logical. So there’s something about what you said. You said, “I brought traffic to my own site,” and I said, wow. So there’s something about the self-reliance here that I feel is more powerful than what you think. You said, “I couldn’t get more than five dollars, so I had to find something else. I wasn’t good at traffic, but I did it for my site.” [inaudible] The difference is, you’re saying you want money, but, in my opinion, I don’t know, I’m hearing this, so tell me if I’m wrong, you’re looking to have more power over what you’re doing. You were empowered by having traffic on the site. So was there something about that? Are you looking for self-reliance? In COVID you’re also saying, “I want a garden,” right? So is there something powerful about that in your character?

Neil: Well, back then I really, genuinely wanted money.

Host: For a car, buy your own stuff.

Neil: Yeah, buy a house, all those things, right? But I don’t know if there was much self-reliance, other than I genuinely thought I was good at it. Because to do SEO and marketing for one site was no different than doing it for others. It didn’t matter what industry, the principles and concepts were the same. And I was getting good at it, and I was getting results fast, and I was getting results faster than the people that I was paying, that were well known in the space at the time. So that’s what led me to realize that, hey, I can do this for other people, and probably better and probably cheaper, because I know what the people were charging me, and I’m like, I can do it at a fraction of the cost, get better results, and let me just do it for free for them for 30 days. Because if they’re not happy, they didn’t lose any money, and if I did good, then they’ll pay me, and I’ll be happy as well.

Host: But that’s another best practice that, at 16, it’s pretty impressive to sort of identify, the whole sort of freemium, “let’s try, let’s see what you get.” Those are things that businesses evolve into. And the confidence. And okay, fine, you did it for your own website and it worked. It’s still very impressive to be able to go into the landscape of the adults who are running their own businesses and offer your services. It’s almost cheeky, and yet it worked.

Neil: Right, it worked. I learned the freemium concept from my mom. So she was born in India, she had a teaching degree in India, which isn’t valid, really, in the United States. So she went to night school, took some classes to try to get it valid here, but she struggled to get a job. So my mom taught at a school for six months for free, and then eventually they paid her. But I learned the concept from my mom. She was doing it years and years ago. She was doing it literally 30 plus years ago, around 32 years ago.

Host: And I’m guessing she had your back. Did both your parents support you in everything that you were doing?

Neil: Yeah, they didn’t care. They were just like, “Yeah, do whatever makes you happy.” My parents are easygoing. My mom was a teacher, my dad worked at a bank. They were pretty easygoing.

Host: Your parents are easygoing, that has nothing to do with the profession, because those two professions…

Neil: Yeah, well, the teacher, my mom, taught little kids, like three-year-olds, five-year-olds, stuff like that, so it wasn’t that hard. There was no pressure, it was more so that she enjoyed her job. My dad working at a bank, most bank jobs are not hard. My dad wasn’t high up at a bank or anything like that. He was a low-level to mid-level employee.

Host: Okay. And then how do you go from sort of starting to get the yeses, starting to provide services for real businesses that are not your own? I mean, if there’s one thing that we’re seeing clearly across all the interviews, speaking with peak performers, it’s that there’s no such thing as overnight success. So I’m guessing you didn’t jump from getting your first business to working with Google and Amazon and NBC, right?

Neil: No, it took a long, long time. Keep in mind, I’m 35, I started when I was 16, so I’m in at 19 years, just to give you an idea. Do I think I’m successful? Probably not. Do I think I’ve done better than the average person? Sure, just being realistic. I also look at success as, it’s in the eye of the beholder. If you’re content, happy with your life, then to me you’re successful. To me, success isn’t equated by your bank account.

Host: Yeah, I think we totally agree. And also it seems that with people who think that way, there’s a correlation, and somehow the bank account is actually in a pretty good state, because you’re doing what you like, and money just naturally sort of falls into place when you do that.

Host: Or the opposite: you’re Trump, and the money goes out, but you’re still doing what you wanted.

Neil: And then the other thing, too, that I’ve quickly learned is, in business, I learned this at a very early age: you don’t make money by making money, you make money by solving problems. If you can solve problems, your solution is good, it’s quick, easy to use, ideally affordable, you can do well. You know, you don’t have to innovate, you just have to solve problems, and solving problems goes a really long way.

Host: So how do you know what problems to solve? Because I’m guessing a lot of the people listening want to do something meaningful, they want to also do something that they love, and sometimes that can be confusing. So what do you ask yourself to understand what is the problem that I think I can solve and enjoy doing?

Neil: When you’re talking about problems to solve, the easiest problem to solve, if you’re trying to figure out what to do, is think about your passion. What are you naturally good at? And look for issues and problems within the space that you’re naturally good at, because you’ll know what issues there are, and go and try to solve them. And the key within what I just said is passion, because if you try to solve problems in things you’re not passionate about, you’re not going to do a good job. You’re not going to care, you’re not going to put in the time, the effort, you’re going to give up when it takes too long or something goes wrong. But when you’re passionate, you usually just keep pushing through, because you like it, and it doesn’t seem like work.

Host: So someone said here, and I think it’s largely what you’re saying: solve your own problems, the ones you’re probably passionate about. So if you think, Richard Branson style, that you can make this experience better, or you can make this product better because you’re using it, then you’ll be passionate about it, because you have that pain.

Neil: But also make sure that there are enough customers who also experience the same thing. You don’t want to solve a problem that only you face. You want to make sure it’s a wide problem. And if it’s not a wide problem that affects a lot of people, you want to make sure that, even if it’s a small problem, the people that it does affect would pay a lot of money for that.

Host: So how old were you when you started making money and figured, this is going to be something I’m going to pursue as a business, I’m going to try and really do this?

Neil: Making revenue or making profit?

Host: I mean, you tell me. There was one stage, probably, when you figured, okay, this is happening, this is real.

Neil: Yeah, so by the time I was almost 17, so still 16, I was doing around 20,000 a month. I wasn’t making any profit, just want to clarify that. I didn’t start making profit until I was in my early 20s.

Host: And you had the privilege of actually being patient because of your age, right? You knew that you could wait.

Neil: No, I didn’t even think about patience or any of that. You have to also remember, just as a kid, one, most kids don’t think long term, or at least I wasn’t able to. And the other thing that you have to realize, too, is at 16 I didn’t really have much of a taste of money before this. Even a few thousand dollars a month, or a thousand dollars a month, was a lot of cash for me. So I was just happy.

Host: This is interesting for me, because I’ve seen a lot of entrepreneurs, or young people, that find out things about making money, and I really liked what you said. When you said it out loud, you said “revenue or profit.” There’s more into that, like cash flow, or how to make money, all of that. Doesn’t that piss you off, that in school you don’t learn that? The reason you weren’t profitable, I’m asking, is it because you didn’t have the capabilities and the idea, you had to learn how to make money while you were making the revenue? Or was it because you only needed a thousand dollars?

Neil: Well, I lived with my parents. As I mentioned, we were middle class. They paid for my expenses, they gave me one of their old cars, they paid for my gas, they paid for my school, they paid for my food, they paid for clothes if I needed clothes. So I didn’t really need money for anything. So I just took all the money I was making and reinvested it in the business, and that’s why I had no profit.

Host: And in that sense, you kept on doing what you’re doing till now, but that world changed like a thousand five hundred times, right?

Neil: Sure. Because I did one too many businesses, one too many ideas, too much ADD, not enough focus. You learn these things over time, right? It’s better to have one big business than to try to do every bright idea that you see. And just, focus goes a long way.

Host: So was there a stage where, when things got a little difficult, with all this ADD and trying to do a few things at the same time, and things were rough, did you at any stage think of giving up, and maybe going to work for someone, or taking the traditional path?

Neil: So many times, you’d be shocked. Because there were so many times I was in debt, like five hundred thousand dollars, a million dollars, just borrowing money from family members to keep doing more and more things. So yeah, there are so many times I wish I didn’t do a lot of these things.

Host: So what kept you going?

Neil: Well, I was still too young at the time when I was in debt, so I couldn’t get a high paying job. So I just kept focusing on doing entrepreneurship. Luckily I didn’t stop. I thought about quitting a few times.

Host: So at some level you didn’t have a choice, because you realized, “I’m already sort of pot committed,” in poker terms, “and it’s either that I somehow fix this, or I don’t even know what.”

Neil: Exactly. I didn’t have too many options at that time.

Host: And then how did you navigate all the pressure that you had to deal with in those times?

Neil: At that time I didn’t really have to deal with too much pressure. The biggest pressure was, I’m in debt. What’s the worst case scenario? Well, for me, funny enough, it was: you just keep working, you slowly pay it off, and I live with my parents and they help. It was stressful, but it wasn’t like the world is ending and I’m on the street and I can’t pay for food and I can’t support my family. I was still single, no family, no kids, nothing. So life, in the grand scheme of things, wasn’t too bad.

Host: I think also you may be pretty optimistic.

Neil: In life I’m very optimistic.

Host: Yeah, we see that across almost everybody that we interview, which is amazing and really inspiring, and I think it’s probably one of the reasons that enable doing things that are sometimes larger than life, and solving problems.

Neil: Yeah. And the other thing that I struggle with is, I’m really terrible at knowing when I can’t do something and I’m not capable. I believe I can do whatever, which is a bad quality too. It’s good and bad, there are pros and cons to it, right? I don’t know when I should quit. I believe I can literally learn whatever I want to learn, and I can just keep pushing forward, and I can accomplish tasks that are probably a little bit too difficult.

Host: That doesn’t sound bad. It’s also what makes entrepreneurs entrepreneurs. I think we all have a little sense of it.

Host: As you mentioned, but doesn’t that diversity help you be creative, or in solving problems, right? If you do a lot of things, even if you fail with them, you’re solving problems, because you have a macro idea. There’s a sentence that says, “If you’re busy working, you don’t have enough time to make money.” So being creative around it gives you that diversity, where people who are working don’t have to solve those problems.

Neil: Yeah, no, I think you’re spot on. What’s funny is, when you talk about creativity, it’s the one thing I wish they’d try to teach you in school, or harness. They’ll try to teach you reading, history, and I’m not saying history is not valuable, we should all learn from history. And they’ll spend so much time working on math, when people just use Excel now, and calculators and all these things. But they don’t teach you how to be creative. There are some things where they do critical thinking problems and stuff like that, but they don’t spend enough time really harnessing creativity. Because life isn’t a straight line, life isn’t black and white. There’s a lot of gray, and things that you have to overcome, and I think creativity is what really helps people thrive.

Host: Yeah, but the problem is, it’s something in the core structure. I really agree with you, but the problem is, wanting to do that and doing that is really difficult, because once you’re studying something and you have to memorize something, there’s a binary one and zero at the end of an answer. And being playful and creative is a taste choice. So who is the judge of creativity, and what is good, and how do you teach someone to give a grade on that? So once you have the grades as a standard, there’s a problem with the creativity. It’s not a platform where it says, “Open canvas, internet, fill it.” It’s a structure, and once it’s a structure, it’s not creative, right? It’s a big problem, I agree with you. But about the creativity and your diversity, though: how do you stay passionate after 20 years of doing that, and after all the ups and downs of Google changing, and rules? You said the most important thing is to be passionate. Are you still passionate after 20 years?

Neil: I’m very passionate about marketing, so I continually [inaudible]. If I wasn’t, I would just go get a job, or find something else to do or something.

Host: But there has to be a drive. Do you build a new challenge for yourself? Are you building different goals for yourself? How do you get excited from your relationship with marketing?

Neil: There are no goals, really. I know that sounds crazy, but I don’t really have goals, other than just keep pushing forward and have fun and do what I’m doing. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are business goals, like, yeah, can we grow X percent this year, or whatever it may be. But just personally, I don’t really have any objective like “I need to do this.” It’s more so: enjoy life for what it is, spend time with family, work, you know, just do the routine. And I just love reading and learning. And out of everything, at the end of the day, when I look at me as a core person, what keeps me going is, I just like winning. It’s not the concept of “did I do this, and did my business achieve this.” It’s more like, did I win? Did I beat someone? And I know that’s silly, but that’s just innate in me. I like winning.

Host: And about winning, how did you get to be the successful entrepreneur, you know, the award-winning, listed person? How did that happen?

Neil: There were so many of us who got selected, technically a hundred of us. And there was this application online, and you click apply, and either you get it or you don’t. It’s that simple. There is nothing more to it.

Host: He makes everything sound really simple. You’re the approachable guy, okay, and at the end of the day he wants to win. You know how dangerous that is, right?

Host: Yes.

Host: Okay, this is a quality. You’re going to win, but you’re going to win while the person is going to feel, “Oh, this guy doesn’t want to win.” Because that’s like a big contrast there. It’s really interesting.

Host: As an entrepreneur, I don’t think anybody just fills out that form. I don’t think Obama, or the team selecting, just went like, “Yeah, he seems awesome.” I think it’s probably a little more complex.

Host: There’s like 40,000 people now clicking right now on the Obama thing, and getting rejected all the time, and they’re like, “Oh, come on, this guy is crushing it, he said it was easy.”

Neil: Well, it was luck of the draw, right? And I’ll be quite frank, they just based it off of revenue, and I knew that we had good enough revenue at the time to get high up.

Host: Okay, let’s take another step back a second, because I feel like everything sounds so Care Bears, and I’m trying to sort of dig in and understand where this wasn’t smooth sailing, because life just isn’t, and we all know that. So you started acquiring customers. At what stage does this scale, and how do you land the top tier one customers in the world? That doesn’t happen overnight.

Neil: Yeah, it really is just a long game. So if you do something long enough and you do a good job, you’ll get a ton of word of mouth, you’ll get more referrals. It’s just a long game. Some of it’s building relationships, going to events, conferences, networking. There’s no quick solution, as you guys know. But if you do something long enough and you get decent at it, eventually you’ll start getting the right type of customers, revenue will start coming. But you’ve got to do it long enough and good enough, and that’s where people really lose out. Most people aren’t willing to put in the time and energy. Most people aren’t patient. Heck, I’m not even that patient. And then most people aren’t willing to take the time to get good at something. Because if you’re not good at it, you’re not going to do well, but if you don’t do it long enough, how are you going to get good at it, right? So they go hand in hand. You’ve just got to keep doing it and doing it until you get better.

Host: What would you say is your superpower?

Neil: I’m pretty good at figuring out most things.

Host: What do you mean by figuring out?

Neil: Like, if someone gives me a problem, I can try to come up with the solution, and if I don’t know it, I’ll go and research it and learn it. So I’m really good at that. The other good thing about me is I have a really good memory, extremely good. I’ll remember things from when I was like four or five years old. I remember things when people told me a story 10 years ago. So I have a really good memory. It’s not photographic, but it’s close. My other really good skill set is I’m great at math. I’m very analytical, which helps with analysis when you’re tearing things apart, what’s going to work, what’s not. For example, I have multiple people in my finance department, and I’ve had it in years past where people will show me spreadsheets in a board meeting, and they’ll show me numbers, and I’ll tell them that their numbers are off, and I’m able to do it in my head, literally right there, in a few seconds.

Host: Okay, so those are really special superpowers. Do you have any tricks on that? Do you visualize memory, do you benchmark numbers and memorize the benchmark, or are you just naturally amazing at that?

Neil: I don’t know if I’m amazing at it, but I was naturally decent at it.

Host: Okay, so if you’re naturally decent at it, in school, you said that you didn’t find anything that you were extra good at, or decent enough in, correct?

Neil: I was good at mathematics, physics, sciences, stuff like that. I did terrible in English, history, Spanish, all that kind of stuff. Didn’t do well. I did really well on the math side.

Host: And so in that sense, what would be your kryptonite?

Neil: My kryptonites: I don’t have the best grammar and English skills, even though English is my first language. What other skills do I lack? I’m a terrible manager.

Host: I wanted to ask you about that. I had a hunch. Is it micromanagement, or do you just not have patience? What are the dynamics on your team?

Neil: I have a lot of issues. I’m not a good micromanager, I’m not a good manager overall. I don’t manage a ton of people, because I just suck at it. I don’t like training, I don’t like teaching people how to do something. I’m just like, I’ll just do it faster.

Host: But you do teach them, like on stages. You educate millions.

Neil: Sure, which is funny, because I can do that, but I can’t teach people one-on-one. I’m terrible at that.

Host: Because you’re impatient?

Neil: Correct. One of my biggest issues is patience. Now, luckily, I have a child now, so I’m learning to be a bit patient, but I’m still not good at it.

Host: You’ll be great at it, as long as you love that child.

Neil: I promise you, I love the child, but I’m bad at a lot of things. Like, even with my child, yesterday she bit my wife, so then I’m like, “I’m going to put you in timeout.” I put her in a box, and the top was open, but she was sitting in a box.

Host: Is this a child or a puppy?

Neil: Child. I’m kidding. I have this cardboard box that she sits in, and I push her around, because she likes sitting in there. And it’s a big box, and she can’t climb out of the top, and she colors on the inside of it, so she likes playing with it. But I put her in there in timeout yesterday, because she bit my wife, and I’m like, she needs to learn, this is the third time. But she started crying, and within like five seconds I take her out. You know, I’m not that strict parent. When it comes to disciplining, or doing stuff that I should do as a dad, I’m bad at that. I’m good at the playing side, I’m good at reading to her, educating. But I just don’t have the patience for, you know, “Hey, let me put on your clothes,” and sit there for 10 minutes and struggle. I don’t have the patience for that.

Host: But is it patience, or are you just playful? You don’t have patience because it’s more fun to do other things.

Neil: That’s true. I can go on a walk with her for 30 minutes every day, and I love that. I just don’t like the concept of me sitting down with her and doing the stuff I don’t like. I know this sounds bad, but I haven’t changed a diaper, still, to this day, and she is 17 months old.

Host: If I had to guess… that’s funny. But I think it’s like a theme, because it’s the same. I think you probably choose the team that you surround yourself with, and it’s the same with the family. You make sure you’re able to be the best version of yourself and to do only what you like, and you surround yourself with the people who are able to do what you don’t. And I’m guessing it turns out healthy. I’m guessing there’s value in what you bring to the table.

Neil: Correct. And I’ll do certain things. Like, I pick up my daughter every morning when she wakes up, and I feed her breakfast, and it’s my time with her, uninterrupted, no work. She likes waking up around five, six o’clock. I’m up before then anyways. And it’s just something that she and I do. No distractions, no emails, no work, and I get to play with her, have fun. This morning she woke up in the crib, and she’s just like, [song name unclear], which means she wanted to hear the song. So I played that song, fed her some cereal, read her some books. When I feed her cereal, like Cheerios, I count how many Cheerios there are. I brush her teeth with her in the morning. It’s things like that. You are right. I think at the end of the day, if I like something, I’ll have the patience for it. If I don’t like something, I have no patience for it.

Host: But I think that’s going back, I’m sorry, because this is not my job, but the self-reliance thing is really strong with you. Doing things that you like, with whom you like, is the same thing as the attribute you were looking for as a child. It came back again, because you’re actually saying it’s not patience. Putting her in the box, it’s like, “No one decides for me, and I do what I want, and if I do that, I actually have a lot of patience, a lot of discipline.” So that’s not your kryptonite. Your kryptonite is that you only want to do things that you enjoy, and sometimes there are diapers that you have to clean, which is not enjoyable.

Neil: And I know what I’m good at. I don’t have a stomach for diapers, I just don’t. It’s not that I don’t want to help, I’ll help my wife. It’s just, if it smells bad, I’m going to get sick. Just like when my wife was giving birth, without getting into any details, the doctor’s like, “Come and pull out the baby.” I’m like, “No, no, no, thank you.” I turned away, and I’m like, “This is your job, I’m not good at this,” right?

Host: If you had to, you would.

Neil: Sure, if I have no choice, I would. But what’s the point of having a doctor? This is what they’re getting paid for.

Host: But to be serious for a second, I know you’re presenting it all chill, and I get your angle completely, but I feel like it’s the same with, like, annoying customers, but ones that you still want to work with, because when you balance everything, you still want to work with them. So you’re going to avoid things that you don’t want to do, if you can.

Neil: That’s why I have an amazing team, so I don’t have to deal with the annoying customers. No offense. You’re not going to have perfect customers when you have hundreds of them, and that’s okay. And you know what, even if a customer is irritating to you, they have a right to be. They’re paying you, they can do whatever they want. Now, if you don’t like it, you don’t have to take their money, but that’s the reality of this. But going back to what you guys were saying earlier, I have very strong self-awareness. I know what I’m good at, I know what I like, and where I’m weak, I just go and find other people. When you’re a little kid, people tell you that you can do everything. And even though I have this, I wouldn’t call it a god complex, but that complex where I believe I can do most things, in reality, when I don’t like something, or I think someone’s better than me at it, I go and find the person and hire them, and then I’ll go learn from them, and I believe I can get better than them. Which sounds bad, but that’s the mentality I have.

Host: That’s actually the truth. So thank you for telling us what every successful person does and just doesn’t tell honestly.

Host: But there’s this thing called the Dunning-Kruger effect. Have you heard of it?

Neil: I have not.

Host: Okay, so it basically means that sometimes people think they’re better than what they actually are. And the other end of the coin here is the imposter syndrome. So some people are on the other end of the scale, and I guess we all feel like sometimes we’re on that end too. Maybe you don’t, but a lot of people sometimes feel the imposter syndrome. And then the idea is to strike the balance, and understand when you’re leaning towards the Dunning-Kruger effect and when this is imposter syndrome, and just find the balance where you’re at your best and where you can add the most value, and then let other people do the stuff where you’re not at your best.

Neil: Yeah. Like, I know if I was going to play basketball, I’m not going to be the best. I know I’m going to be terrible at it. No matter how much I practice, I just don’t have that physical ability in my body. But at the same time, I know there are certain things that I’m just amazing at, and sometimes I have a bit too much arrogance, that I can learn and get good at it. And even if I know I fail and I’m not the best in the short run, I believe if I just keep doing it and learning, I can get better than most people. But that’s what makes entrepreneurs, and I think that’s the skill that a lot of them need to have, sadly.

Host: Now, in that sense, the most important thing is, you have the confidence, and you’re like 20 years into entrepreneurship. In the new generation that’s like [300, 400] years. You’re like Gandalf in entrepreneurism. So the question is this. I want to summarize everything and be respectful of your time, and just understand one thing. If you would go back, either to other entrepreneurs or to yourself when you were starting off, what would be the one tip that you think would be a game-changer? You know, Marty McFly going back in the DeLorean and giving it to yourself. What would it be?

Neil: This is a silly one, but it would be: focus. I know if I focused, my companies would probably be four or five times the size. Focus is something people take for granted, but if you just do one thing, and you do it extremely well, and you do it for a long time, and you’re in a big enough market, you’ll build a huge business. And I think that’s a big mistake. And that was actually the second thing I would tell myself: pick big TAMs. There were some times where I created businesses that were in small markets, and it doesn’t matter how much effort you put in, a small market is a small market. And what I learned over the years is, to build a business in a small market and to build a business in a big market takes almost the same amount of effort. So you might as well go after the one with the big TAM.

Host: Love it. That is so important. All right, we know you have to jump, so we really appreciate this. Thank you so much. This has been fantastic, and we really thank you for coming on.

Host: Yeah, and keep on putting it in brutal simplicity. I love it. Thank you very much.

Neil: Thank you. Thank you guys for having me.

Host: All right, bye-bye.

[Music]

We have the technology. Real Life Superpowers.