Nick Huber: Biggest Lies of Silicon Valley; Lost Art of Delegation; How to Grow Your Network | E1051

1. 0:00 – 6:30

   Nick Huber’s Mission

   1. NHNick Huber0:00

      Money only amplifies the human. If you're a shitty person, money's gonna amplify that. If you're a great person, money can amplify that and can impact a lot of people. The mistake that people make is thinking that life is easy for people who are rich.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings0:12

      Nick, I am so excited for this. I've been a fan of your Twitter for quite a long time. So thank you so much for joining me, first. (laughs)

   3. NHNick Huber0:19

      Ah, Harry, man, I love the journey that you're on, have a lot of respect for what you're doing, and I'm honored to be here.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings0:24

      That is very, very kind of you. Now, I always love to start with a little bit of context, and I'm a armchair psychologist, if you can believe it. Uh, and so I want to start with your great-grandparents coming over from Germany, and I always believed that our pasts shape us in many ways. If our past did shape us, what do you think you're running from, Nick?

   5. NHNick Huber0:43

      The part that people don't understand about wealth, success, just living a better life, having the life that you and I both live, which I think is pretty wonderful, it's a, it's a multi-generational journey. People don't realize that. And my great-great-grandfather came over from Germany with his wife, with nothing, and they worked basically their entire lives at jobs that sucked, uh, so that their kids could have a little bit more of an advantage, which in their case was to, like, go to the public schools, um, in a re- in a decent area, and then have a chance to go to college. My grandparents then didn't go to college, they didn't do that, but they joined unions, th- they went into the military, joined unions, worked their whole life to send m- my parents to a little bit of a better school and have a little bit, you know, better upbringing, more stability, air conditioner, a TV. And my parents, um, are working their entire lives to make things just a little bit better for me. So, we live in a day and age where everybody wants it all right now. We all want to get rich in 12 months, three years, five years. And when we look at very successful immigrant families, they, they play a different game. They play a, they play a multi-generational game, and they're willing to sacrifice and delay gratification to the point where th- they themselves may never actually get that gratification. They're just gonna watch their offspring and their, and their kids and grandkids do that. It's really inspiring to me. That's really inspiring to me, to think bigger, and to, uh, when you ask what I'm running from, I'm, I'm, I'm running from taking a step backwards. Going, you know, I, I look at it as a baseball game. My great-grandparents came over to do that first at bat with nothing, they left their kids on first base, they left my parents on second base so that I could be left on third base, and I want to leave my kids a couple steps from home plate and set 'em up to do more of what they wanna do and add a lot of value to other peoples' lives.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings2:39

      We're, we're gonna talk about setting your kids up, you know, one foot from home plate. I did just have to ask, when you said there about kind of it being a multi-generational game and wanting it now, I bluntly and probably definitely succumb to that, and it's 'cause you look around. You see other people do it. You go on TikTok, on Twitter, and you see everyone come out with their successes. How do you quieten the noise and focus on yourself, do you think?

   7. NHNick Huber3:01

      I'm on a, I'm on a personal mission to kind of change that narrative, because I do think that a lot of what we see on social media from wealthy entrepreneurs and successful businesspeople, you know, the titans of industry, um, in our modern era, is the sexy stuff. It's the world-changing ideas. It's the get, you know, get rich in a college dorm room type, you know, story. Most stories that I, that I hear from, again, uh, families that are playing this game, this generational game of success and wealth and just living a better life, very few of their stories are about that.

   8. HSHarry Stebbings3:38

      I totally agree with you. You said there the word families, and it made me just think of something that you've tweeted before that I thought was interesting. And you said about two types of people, the ones who are kind of obsessed to the end of the world about being brilliant, like, truly brilliant about something-

   9. NHNick Huber3:54

      Mm-hmm.

   10. HSHarry Stebbings3:55

       ... and then the second who take a more balanced approach, and you said everyone in the second was happier. Can you talk to me about that, Nick?

   11. NHNick Huber4:02

       I think the interesting thing about this world is that we're encouraged, again, by culture. We're encouraged to try to be the best in the world at something. And these folks will say it and they'll be honest, and they'll say, "In order to be the best in the world, you cannot be very good at really anything else. You're, you're obsessing." And we look at our most successful business moguls of all time, and many of them, it's, that's the case. Maybe unhealthy, broken families, not that great of parents, just singularly focused on business entrepreneurship, health, um, of their companies, not their bodies and their families, but, and I, and I would have to kind of agree with that. If you want to be the best, if you wanna be the richest in the world, if you wanna be the best businessperson in the world, you have to live an unbalanced life and that you can't actually be the best in the world at two things. So the ego, our personal egos will, will say, "Well shit, if everybody else is on a journey to be the best, I wanna be the best. I can be the best. I should work hard enough to where I am a legend and I am the best." That's what our egos will tell us. In my opinion, a more realistic approach is to, yes, play the game of business at a high level, which we, we're gonna talk about a lot in this conversation, do amazing things with, you know, leverage and delegation so that you can be successful as an entrepreneur and a businessperson in, in your career, but that life is several different gardens and you have a, a marriage, and you have the fact that, you know, you, you're a parent and that you have a, a physical body that you need to care for and, and take care of and make last a really long time. And then you have relationships with your friends, you have hobbies, you have your spirituality, you have these different areas of life that are very important. When I look at people who are happiest, people who li- live a long time and can walk, you know, walk around the airport at 75 years old instead of getting wheeled through a wheelchair basically, when I see those people, they have balance. Okay, maybe, maybe they've kinda just said, "I don't have the ego or the," or, you know, "Who, who am I trying to prove that I'm the best in the world at one thing? I am not LeBron James, I am not Elon Musk. I don't, I don't need to be that."... but I can live and be a good parent, a good husband, a good, you know, uh, have a, have a good strong body. So, those are, those are my goals.

   12. HSHarry Stebbings6:13

       When I hear you say that, again, I, I like just having an open conversation, when I hear you say that, I feel accepting of mediocrity in myself.

   13. NHNick Huber6:21

       Mm-hmm.

   14. HSHarry Stebbings6:21

       I would be scared to do that because I'd be like, "I could've been more."

   15. NHNick Huber6:25

       Mm-hmm.

   16. HSHarry Stebbings6:25

       If I'd given it more, I could've been better.

   17. NHNick Huber6:27

       Mm-hmm.

   18. HSHarry Stebbings6:28

       How would you advise me

2. 6:30 – 9:55

   How to Reject Mediocrity

   1. HSHarry Stebbings6:30

      when I say that I'm fearful of accepting, kind of, mediocrity by not giving it my all?

   2. NHNick Huber6:36

      I think the, the lie that we tell ourselves is that we can't play the game at a high level, the game of business, our careers, that we can't play that game at a high level without, you know, being unbalanced. The hustle culture on Twitter and all over the internet will say, you know, "It's all about work. I'm working 70 hours a week. My career is first." That's glorified. We'll look at, kind of, like, the startup founders who have worked long hours, they're, they're kind of like gladiators, right? They're, they're viewed in a different light. It does take a little bit of a, let's, you know, we gotta swallow our ego and pride and say, "Hey, look, I'm gonna leave a little bit of money on the table here, but my life overall is gonna be more rewarding." In my opinion, there's nothing more rewarding than being a good parent, a good, a good spouse, have amazing relationships with friends and family members, which I know you're also super passionate about, and then also being, like, physically fit. Be, be a physical specimen and feel strong and healthy. Nothing seems more fun than that, so. And I also, I think that we can do it. I think that you can play this game of business at a really high level working 30 hours a week, and the people who say that they can't and that they have to work 70 hours a week are, are, kind of, working on the wrong shit. (laughs)

   3. HSHarry Stebbings7:53

      (laughs) I love it. Where are you insecure, Nick? And what I mean by that is, everyone who I think proclaims that, me included, who will proclaim that openly and actively, a lot of it's based out of insecurity.

   4. NHNick Huber8:06

      Mm-hmm.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings8:07

      Uh, I'm insecure in many ways. How do you think about where you're insecure?

   6. NHNick Huber8:11

      It takes a unique person to do what I do, which is write thoughts of my own, and ideas, and stories from my past on the internet and compete for likes and follows. That game is a game that I'm not proud that I play because it just shows that I am very... I, I do care a lot about what people think, and we got on this call and immediately you said, "You know, Nick, I really respect that reading your stuff, I can tell that you just don't care what people think." And that would be, that would be a lie. Like, I'm putting on a front that I don't care, but we all care. Like, we all care. I care deeply about what the people closest to me think of me, but it's hard not to care what people think, and that's why I tweet and get followers and trying to build a personal brand. So, the, the insecurity and fear of failure is evident, and the people who don't talk about it, the entrepreneurs who just say, "Oh, this is easy for me," are lying, because business is really hard. Putting yourself out there is really, really hard. I think the interesting thing about being a notable person, whether it be an influencer or leader of any kind, is that you cannot please everybody, number one. I can't please everybody. It's impossible. I'm going to do what I can do to, you know, please the most amount of people, but I can't possibly ever please them all. The second one is that you're gonna get a lot of hate that you can't respond to and that you cannot defend yourself from. It's impossible for me to defend myself from all the different thoughts and conversations that are going on, l- almost all of them are happening when I'm not present, when I'm not there. And that is, uh, a tough part of, about playing this game, and it, and it is absolutely, you know, drives some insecurity and, and fear.

   7. HSHarry Stebbings9:48

      I'm just totally using this conversation for advice, so you can, you can invoice me afterwards.

   8. NHNick Huber9:52

      (laughs)

   9. HSHarry Stebbings9:52

      I'm cool with it. Um, but you, you mentioned

3. 9:55 – 16:38

   How to Deal with The Criticism

   1. HSHarry Stebbings9:55

      that kind of getting comfortable almost with the criticism. I get deeply saddened when people are rude to me. I don't know them. Uh, on, like, Twitter, people will say I'm an idiot, a product of zero interest rate environment, you name the shit that people will throw at me.

   2. NHNick Huber10:10

      Mm-hmm.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings10:10

      It really upsets me. How would you advise me on protecting myself against hatred?

   4. NHNick Huber10:17

      I think every, every bit of hate has to be weighed from who you're getting it from, and there's a fact about the world that's a very sad part of the world that we find out when we're kids and we're in classrooms full of 30 individuals, people are very mean to each other. A lot of people are very mean to each other. Kids are very mean to each other, high schoolers are very mean to each other, and adults are very mean to each other, and it all stems from jealousy. If I had to say that maybe 80% of the world has varying levels of jealousy and hate, hate towards people who win, people who succeed, people who thrive, and maybe 20 or 30% of them, it, it's serious. Like, they are literal crabs in a bucket. Instead of, instead of w- helping people lift, lift other people up and try to make other people's lives better, they're literally pulling other people down to make themselves lift up, to, because they think that that's how they can get better and improve. There's a saying in real estate, like, there's two ways to own the largest building in town. One way is to build the largest building in town. The second way is to tear down all the buildings that are taller than your own building.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings11:21

      (laughs)

   6. NHNick Huber11:22

      That second one, tearing other people down, is way easier. It's way easier than building the largest building in town. Making yourself more successful, doing the work on yourself to thrive and succeed is way harder than shitting on all the people who actually do. That's just a sad, it's a sad reality that we can never get away from. So yes, it hurts when people hate. We just have to do our best to be secure enough in our own actions, our own thoughts, our, you know, the way that we're, we've chose to go about life that, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna continue on and keep fighting.

   7. HSHarry Stebbings11:56

      Talking about that choosing to go about life, and sorry, I sent you a schedule, but I'm just too interested in this discussion. Uh, (laughs) uh, you, I think people change a lot and, kind of, self-reflect a lot. When you think about your biggest moments of change and self-reflection, what do you think your one or two biggest have been?

   8. NHNick Huber12:14

      I have a...... a theory that there's a very dangerous thing about being successful, especially when you're notable and you have 300,000 people on Twitter hanging on your every word. It can get very dangerous because you start to... Now, this is gonna sound funny, but you start to, kind of, be your own idol. You start-

   9. HSHarry Stebbings12:32

      Mm.

   10. NHNick Huber12:32

       ... to be your own god. And you start to think that, "Oh, maybe I am just special. Maybe I am. Like, look at all these ways that I'm winning, look at all these people who really hang on every word that I say." And that gets very, very, very dangerous. And if you don't have an open mind, you start filtering information based on what supports your opinions and you can lose massive amounts of money, you can turn into a complete asshole, and you can change for the worse. And it happens to a lot of successful people. I have a little sticker on my mirror, above my, uh, above my sink, because my grandfather gave me amazing advice. He said, "Nick, you're gonna do amazing things in life, but if you don't remain humble and kind to people around you, then it'll all be for naught. And you're gonna pass on things to your kids that are not great, and you're gonna be- you're gonna, instead of being a positive influence on a lot of people's lives, you're gonna become a negative influence." I have this little sticker on my mirror that I see every morning when I brush my teeth, it says, "Change your mind on something today." So, what you see on Twitter is me having very strong beliefs, contrarian beliefs, unique viewpoints, but honestly, they're very loosely held. There's no real way to get smarter than having 300,000 people reading your thoughts and responding and calling you out when you're wrong, especially the notable people and the ones who have the reputation inside of our communities. But also in c- in business. I have six or seven employees in my companies, you know, there's three or 400 people now and across them all, but there's six or seven that I trust their opinions enough where I encourage them constantly to call me out. Call me out. "Hey, I want you to constantly be sending everything I say... Watch my Twitter, watch me in meetings, watch the decisions of these companies that we're running together, and any time you think I'm wrong, come to me right away and call me out." I don't wanna surround myself with yes people. I wanna surround myself with people who are looking for what's right. And sometimes it's tough, and it's happened to me in a couple of my companies where one of my employees says, "Nick, um, I disagree with X, Y, and Z, and here's why." And immediately I get defensive. I- I have my own complex of success in leading this company where I'll admit that it's not always easy to hear this stuff and that... And my employees aren't always right. We have a discussion, but it makes me better and it allows me to, kind of, make better decisions and protect myself from blind spots and- and potential losses and- and poor decisions when it comes to strategies, investments, and guiding these companies that I'm- that I'm starting.

   11. HSHarry Stebbings14:55

       Nick, is there a separation between brand Nick and the real Nick?

   12. NHNick Huber15:01

       Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm a lot more nuanced, I'm a lot more moderate on so many different opinions. But look, that is not how you build a brand. You can hate me, you can hate me if you want, but I am just playing a game. The rules are the rules. I'm gonna play the game as well as I possibly can, but the people who know me in person understand that- that I'm a lot different than the Nick that you read about on Twitter.

   13. HSHarry Stebbings15:23

       What do you think are the rules to the game?

   14. NHNick Huber15:26

       The rules to the game is that e- if you don't have anything unique, if you don't bring a new perspective to the conversation, nobody is gonna give a shit about following you. They don't wanna hear... People don't wanna hear the same ideas echoed back and forth. There's already enough echo chambers in our life. We're surrounded by our family, which are all in the same world that we are in, and begin to believe the same things that we believe. And then in our companies, we're all rowing the ship the same way, we're echoing ideas right off each other. It's a big echo chamber. Online communities are no different. The people who hang out in anti-work Reddit, they all feel the same way about companies and capitalism, and they're echoing ideas and- and just making each other more and more and more radical. Twitter is- is no different. So, when you can be open-minded and, you know, be nuanced on Twitter, it's not interesting. If you're just gonna echo the same things back and forth from everybody else and just share the same ideas that everybody else is sharing, you're not gonna be interesting.

   15. HSHarry Stebbings16:24

       I totally agree with you. It's, I think great brands are loved or hated, but you feel something, and that's the most important thing. Uh-

   16. NHNick Huber16:31

       Very well said.

   17. HSHarry Stebbings16:31

       No great- no great brand is like, "Nah. Nah, it wasn't really."

   18. NHNick Huber16:35

       (laughs)

   19. HSHarry Stebbings16:35

       Uh, you mentioned your team there. Um,

4. 16:38 – 24:10

   How to Delegate

   1. HSHarry Stebbings16:38

      I do wanna dig into delegation. It's something that I struggle with, actually, as a leader, to be blunt. How do you think about delegation today, and what only you can do versus what you are willing to delegate?

   2. NHNick Huber16:49

      I think delegation is a- is a lost art for a reason. Delegation is not ingrained in human beings. It is not taught to us in school. There's no teacher in the world that is gonna say, "Nick, I want you to write a four-page report on this book, but I want you to get somebody else to read the book and I want you to get somebody else to write the report."

   3. HSHarry Stebbings17:08

      (laughs)

   4. NHNick Huber17:09

      It's- it's- it's nonexistent in sports. Your coach is never gonna be like, "Hey Nick, um, I want you to do, you know, th- three circuits of these exercises i- at track practice, but I want you to find some freshman to do those exercises for you while you sit back and watch them." You go to college and you start to study books and science and- and all these different things, and the answer's always a couple steps back and it's about you doing the work. All of it is about you doing the work and you becoming competent and doing the work yourself. And some can argue that it's the industrial revolution of just the way the government needed to create schools and the culture to create employees that can go to work and follow tasks, follow- follow the rules. Like, "Hey, sit in a seat and do the same job over and over again. If we build a workforce that can do that, America will thrive." A lot of arguments around that. But also just delegation is really hard. So what happens is you have a bunch of 21, 22, 23-year-olds graduating college, and they have zero experience delegating. Then they go to their first job, they're told what to do by somebody who has some level of delegation, and they're- and they can go 5, 10, 20, 30 years without ever delegating. Ever. Ever delegating. So it's totally unnatural. Nobody in any area of the world is gonna be s- you know, primed and pr- prepped to delegate.... so therefore, very few people actually know how to do it. If you're an entrepreneur listening to this, this is gonna speak right to your soul. But if you're an employee listening to this, it- it- it still speaks to you because there's two ways to make a lot of money as an employee at a company. One is to do your job really well. You can make great money that way. But if you wanna get penaid- paid phenomenally well at a company, phenomenally well, get other people to do their jobs well. De- delegate to them, build teams, be able to manage people. They're the ones who are compensated the most. So, this is the most powerful people in the world, in companies, in entrepreneurship, in management hierarchies at Fortune 500 companies, in government, in organizations. They're all master delegators. The power flows up to the people who know how to delegate and control other people. Now, when it comes to delegation, there's- I- I- I'll just give you a little bit to bite on here and you can choose what you want me to elaborate on. There's two levels of delegation. Number one is just telling somebody what to do. "Hey, Harry, I need help with X. Log in and do X. This is how you do it. Here's the directions." That's level number one. And honestly, pretty successful organizations can be built with only one person making all the decisions and everybody else just doing individual jobs and looking up to that one person. That's like the first level of delegation is just tasks and tell you what to do. The second level of delegation, which is way harder and way more uncomfortable and one in a thousand people can do well, is delegating decisions. Okay, so I'm not just gonna tell Harry what to do, I'm gonna tell Harry what needs done and he's gonna make decisions as they come, and he's gonna solve problems, and he's gonna answer people's questions, and he's gonna, uh, live in a more dynamic situation where he's actually making decisions. And as a business owner, you can get really far with only delegating tasks. You can... there's businesses that I know of, friends of mine who own companies that are doing one, two, three million dollars a year of EBITDA, and they are the only decision-maker at their company.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings20:18

      So, my question to you on the back of that is, I agree, I understand. The challenge you have is to delegate, especially decisions, but even tasks, you have to have trust. Do you trust people on day one and allow them to run in both tasks and decisions, or is it built over time with achievements that they prove out?

   6. NHNick Huber20:40

      Absolutely. As a manager of people, your- your job is to get a look into somebody's brain and constantly be judging their ability to delegate. When you start a company and you have a small team, imagine all the employees... this is a- a, you know, a way to think about this. Imagine you're the boss and you're sitting in the corner office and you have five employees, they're all doing tasks. Every day, they walk into your office with a problem that they need solved. That problem is a monkey that's on their back. Imagine a monkey literally just raising hell, pulling out hair, pulling their hat off, um, that's the problem. They walk into your office and they say, "Hey, Nick, I've got a problem," and they tell you their problem, and instantly that monkey jumps off of their back and onto your desk, and now it's your problem as a business owner. Most business owners, most business owners are just gonna send the employee away and keep the monkey for themselves, the problem. And then all day, employees are walking in and monkeys are getting dropped off in your office. And before you know it, your entire company is a zoo, you are the bottleneck, you're the zookeeper, you're putting away monkeys, and all the problems are your problems. The way to do it is, uh, an employee walks in and they give you a problem and- and you're- you're not gonna- you're gonna make sure that they walk out of your office with that monkey. They're gonna take it for themselves. They're not gonna leave the monkey in your office. So, you're asking them questions. You come to me, "Harry, Harry, Nick, I got this big problem." "Okay, get out of my way. I'll solve the problem." That's the way most business owners do it, and they never start to trust their employees to actually make decisions and solve problems. But if you ask that employee a question, "Hey, how would you solve this problem? Here's the goals of the company, what do you think about it?" And they start talking. Two things happen. Number one, they get practice making decisions now. And you're get- and number two, you're getting to see right into their mind about how they make those decisions and start to build trust. Some of them are gonna s- talk in circles and you're gonna be like, "Okay, well, o- obviously they have absolutely no idea how to solve this problem." But some of them are gonna start to do really well. They're gonna start to answer your questions and say, "Oh, I understand. I can think about it this way. This is what I would do." You're gonna send them off to solve the problem, then they'll come back to you with another problem. If they keep coming back to you with the same one over and over again, you kind of know, um, maybe they're not thinking about things the same way. But all my employees, when they come to me with a problem, they know they better also come to me with a solution. And I start to listen to their solutions, I start to listen to their thoughts, and I start to build trust with them. The more problems that they s- prove that they can solve, the more responsibilities I'll give, the more responsibilities I'll give, the more responsibilities I'll give. So, it's absolutely an evolution where you're getting a look into the mind of your employees, seeing how they would solve problems by talking to them, working through it, and also having them bring solutions, and you can trust them more and more and more over time.

   7. HSHarry Stebbings23:04

      How do you respond to my concern that... and this sounds arrogant, but I don't mean it so. I can always do it better. I- I've done it before, I know how it's done. Like, me and you are both smart guys. We can likely always do it much better than someone new joining. And so I just say, "Oh, fuck it, I'll do it."

   8. NHNick Huber23:22

      That's why it's so hard. 'Cause look, when the employee walks in with that monkey, you know that it's more of a pain in your butt to get them to tend to their own monkey at first. It's more of a pain for them to handle the monkey than for you to just take the monkey and put it back in its cage. Because yes, you can do it in one minute, whereas telling them and teaching them and working with them and coaching them on how to- how to solve their problems takes more time and they're not gonna do it as well. So yes, it ta- it's a process, but what happens is, it- it- it's a snowball. It accumulates. The momentum picks up. And if you start to work with these employees and invest in these employees and give them more tasks, it starts to roll down the hill, they start to get better and better. And before you know it, they're actually better than you and you have no idea what's going on inside of your own company. And it's actually... it- it's a pretty amazing feeling.

5. 24:10 – 28:06

   Losing Trust & How to Fire Someone

   1. NHNick Huber24:10

   2. HSHarry Stebbings24:10

      What do you do when trust is lost, when things are not going well and you've lost trust in someone? Is it possible to rebuild it? And how do you manage that situation?

   3. NHNick Huber24:22

      Uh, I think all stress and problems and, you know, losses of trust are- are a result of one of two things.... one, they're not good enough at their job. They're not working hard enough. It's a competence issue. They're just not good enough. Number two is a moral issue, where, uh, they don't have your best interests at heart and they are, uh, making decisions that are gonna benefit them and actually hurt you: lying, stealing, cheating, and so on. Both of those, you have to make the decision right then of like, "Okay, do I keep investing in this person? Do I keep giving them more, more things? Or do I take things off their plate or get this person out of my company altogether?" It's, it's tough. That's why this is so hard. Everything in business is a people problem. You're managing people, you're managing their emotions, you're managing them lying, stealing, cheating, not working hard, doing whatever. It's not easy. It's not easy. That's, that's why managers get paid the big bucks.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings25:08

      You said I could ask you anything. What do you still do today that you wish you didn't have to do?

   5. NHNick Huber25:14

      It's a process, but I don't have a lot of things inside of my companies right this moment that I don't think are real- really high leverage activities. Maybe I wish that my entire Twitter was automated so I could get off of it for a year (laughs) and, and the tweets would keep flowing. But a lot of my tweets are made by my team. They're reposts from either my newsletter or, you know, written from a, uh, interview like this, or something along those lines. But I am operating at a, at a really, at an area of really high leverage, but it wasn't always that way. I mean, eh, five years ago, I was driving a box truck around the streets of Boston, you know, during the really busy season. So, um, I've, I've made a lot of, I've made a lot of strides when it comes to delegation.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings25:54

      What do you, what do you think are the biggest hiring mistakes you've made? I've made many in my time. You've mentioned three to 400 people plus. What do you think are the biggest, like, "Ah, fuck, that was a big hiring mistake?"

   7. NHNick Huber26:06

      Overestimating somebody's competence is, uh, a, a tremendous mistake and, and there's no backtracking from it. If you think that somebody can handle it and they can't, that's, those are the worst. I mean, 'cause, 'cause getting them out... Hiring somebody is expensive, it's time-consuming. Training them up is expensive and time-consuming. And getting to the point where you've done both of those expensive and time-consuming things and realized that the person's just not good enough to do the job, that hurts. And it, and it's unavoidable. It literally is unavoidable. I hire fast and I fire fast. I'm not gonna go, send somebody through 10 interviews. I'm gonna get somebody in my company, I'm gonna start giving them little things to work on, and then I'm going to give them more and more and more trust as they prove that they can handle it. Early on, I was really serious about, you know, top-grading and personality tests and doing all this crazy shit with hiring to try to figure out who's a good fit, and I was still making bad hires. And I realized, hey, the only real way that I can figure out if somebody's good is to get them in and to get them to start working. Like, I am not good enough. Some people are. Some people are good enough that in a 10-round interview, they can figure out if this person's gonna be highly effective. I am not arrogant enough to think that I could do that. I've, I've got it to a point now where I hire fast, fire fast. It wasn't always that way, and it was, it was a mistake for me.

   8. HSHarry Stebbings27:18

      How do you fire? It's really hard to do.

   9. NHNick Huber27:21

      There is no easy way to fire somebody. And you talk about what it's like as a business owner and why, you know, it's not for everybody. Uh, one of the things I've changed my mind on is that, eh, five years ago, I thought entrepreneurship was for everybody, and now, today, I, I don't believe that anymore. The fact that you have to let somebody go in your company who was in your wedding three weeks earlier, and they're crying in your arms, looking in your eyes saying, "How am I gonna..." You know, "My wife's pregnant. How am I gonna... Like, what am I gonna do, Nick? What, what do you want me to do?" when you gotta let them go. And it does, it, it... I've done it a lot of times, and it never, ever, ever gets easier.

   10. HSHarry Stebbings27:55

       No, and it almost shouldn't, I, I, I do believe, actually. 'Cause if it gets too easy, you almost lose your humanity in those situations. And like, it should be hard because it means you actually feel. But I'm, I'm really

6. 28:06 – 34:12

   Entrepreneurship in America Today

   1. HSHarry Stebbings28:06

      intrigued. You said about entrepreneurship being for, not for everyone. We have every business school, we have every business book, all full of shit, and they all tell us that anyone can be an entrepreneur and anyone can be anything. Sadly, dude, I'm not gonna be LeBron James, you know? I ain't good at basketball and I don't have his, you know, structure and height and everything in between, uh, no matter how much I train. Why do you think entrepreneurship isn't for everyone?

   2. NHNick Huber28:31

      The average competence of human beings is a lot lower than everybody would think. Or, the average... We'll just talk about America for a second. The average American is 30 pounds overweight, they have less than $1,000 in their checking account, and they're just trying to do as little as possible to get paid next Friday so that they can go drink six beers with their buddies and watch Netflix. That's just the truth. That's... Like, we, we surround ourselves online with high performers, people who wanna own companies, and we forget that most people, A, don't care. And if you've ever hired people, if you've ever built teams, you understand that a lot of people are not good at making these decisions that are required of entrepreneurs. We talk about, uh, delegation and decisions and, and the, and the constant nuance and uncertainty of being an entrepreneur. You're making incomplete decisions with incomplete information, and it's very high-stakes, it's very uncomfortable. That is not for everybody. That is obviously not for everybody. Five years ago, I thought, you know, everybody should be an entrepreneur. This is the path to wealth, the sweaty startup mentality, you know, forget tech culture. Let's, let's build small businesses. Ev- anybody can do this. Um, today, I think I couldn't have been more wrong. I think 95% of people are way better off going and working for a company, earning great money, building their skills over time, and then focusing on other areas of life that is not business and entrepreneurship.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings29:51

      Do you think VCs are rightly positioned to invest, often in companies for the masses, when they live a life of the very few? And I'm, I'm fortunate enough to live a life of the few. I'm sure you do too, and we enjoy the luxuries of it. But when you speak about, you know, drinking a six-pack and having Netflix, and you did a tweet about queuing in Walmart, and I joked with my, you know, team there, said, "I bet he's got a portfolio of precisely fuck-all."

   4. NHNick Huber30:17

      (laughs)

   5. HSHarry Stebbings30:17

      Um, but... (laughs) Because, you know what? They're in Portofino right now for the summer, or they're, you know, skiing in Courchevel in the winter. Are VCs rightly positioned given their distance from mass market?

   6. NHNick Huber30:30

      I think VCs are rightly positioned to do the things that VCs do best, which is the tale, the tale case of value add, which is making a few people's life better and then those, those things over years trickle down to the masses. Does that make sense? Like, to change the world, you have to start with the elite. You have to start with how companies interact. You have to start with doing all these little things to make companies more efficient and make the world more efficient, and those things do require venture capital. And, and the goal of venture capital is to find those edge cases. The goal of venture capital is not to build a portfolio of companies that re- that cash flow 100 grand a month and then go on, uh, mountain biking trips every morning at 6:00, 6:45 AM. That's not the goal of a VC. A VC is to invest in 100 companies and two of those companies are gonna return 10X on the entire portfolio. That's the goal. So yes, they're very well positioned in that regard. But I think when the VCs, and the tech guys, and the people who are living in venture, uh, you know, in LA and, and New York City and, and San Francisco, when they're talking about business in general, one must understand that these folks have not been in a Walmart in 10 years. They have, they just haven't-

   7. HSHarry Stebbings31:32

      (laughs)

   8. NHNick Huber31:32

      ... been in one. They haven't, they haven't looked at the average American. They have no idea what the average American thinks about, lo- you know, looks for, eats, um, does with their free time. They have no idea the way most Americans are interacting with the world, because they're in a, in a bubble. They're in a bubble of elite, unique people. There, there's a (laughs) there's very, very famous influencers on Twitter and in the tech world who think, they actually think that artificial intelligence and software will control the entire world. They think that it'll solve every problem and that nobody will need to work because software will solve all the problems. What they don't understand is that when you close your computer and when you look outside, there's, every single person spends 97% of their time in a physical building, turning on faucets with water coming out, uh, hoping that cold air comes out of a hole in their ceiling so that they can stay cool in the summer. Those things are not cleaned, built, maintained by software and they never will be. There's a huge part of the world that is localized and physical and requires sweat and work. (laughs)

   9. HSHarry Stebbings32:42

      (laughs) I love that. Are you worried about income inequality? I think one of the biggest problems we see is the massive divergence between the 1% or the 0.1% now and everyone else. I think it's gonna be a bigger and bigger problem with AI, actually. Are you as concerned as I am about income inequality over the next decade?

   10. NHNick Huber32:59

       I'm not concerned with it. I think it's a very natural phenomenon, and if you try to fight it, you're fighting a battle that has stood the test of, uh, you know, 2,000 years of civilization as it has advanced. You could take all the money in the United States right now. You take all the money and you could divide it equally among everybody. Take all the money and divide it equally, and in 5, 10, 15 years, you could argue about the timeframe, in 5 years, at least 80% of the cash would be in the hands of 20% of the people, 80% of the power would be in the hands of 20% of the people, and in 10 or 20 years, 1% of the people would control the world again. Because there's people who know how to make money and there's people who know how to buy things that make money and invest and build companies and delegate and build things of value, and there's a vast majority of people who only know how to spend money. They know how to go to work, make money, and spend it. And this, this stuff's a skill. It is, it is an ability, and income inequality is natural. It always has been natural. And I'm not worried about it because today, the poorest people in America have a better life than the wealthiest people in America 50 years ago. They have better access to healthcare. They have better living situations. They have more amenities. They have better food. Um, it trickles down massively, at least in developed countries.

   11. HSHarry Stebbings34:11

       Speaking

7. 34:12 – 40:37

   Should you give your kids money?

   1. HSHarry Stebbings34:12

      of that wealth, I do have to go back to the statement that you said earlier, specifically about children and kind of your grandparents, your parents, you. And then, you know, you said, "I started on third and my kids will start one foot from home plate." Can you unpack that for me, Nick? What did you mean by that?

   2. NHNick Huber34:28

      A lot of entrepreneurs kind of brag about the fact that they're not gonna give anything to their kids. They say it. They, they say it like, "I am going, I'm going to give all my money away and my kids will find, will, will get their own cash or opportunity," or whatever it is. I think that is such a cop-out to the art of parenting. My job as a parent is not to, "Oh, your dad's rich. You're not rich. You go back to first base and let's see if you can make it." That's not my job. My job is to raise kids to build a family that can handle the wealth, that knows how to make people's lives better, can invest the money, not try to just avoid it all together. It's like, it's like saying, my son's name is Timothy, "Hey, Timothy, you are not allowed to drink a beer your entire life. I'm not gonna ever give you a beer. I expect you never to drink one, and now go out into the world and handle it." The first day at college, they're gonna get so obliterated they can't... they're, they just don't understand an- and it's gonna, it could potentially ruin their life. Money is the same way. Like, I'm going to teach my kids how to handle money, teach my kids how to think about money, and I'm gonna set them up with all the opportunities that I possibly could. Why would I do all this work to build this network, to build these companies, to build generational wealth if I'm not gonna pass on some of that advantage to the people who are literally my children?

   3. HSHarry Stebbings35:45

      I, I, I completely agree with you so I'm thrilled about that. I think Bernard Arnault also, by the way, is one of the best examples of instilling work ethic, grit, hunger, and his kids are unbelievably hardworking and talented, too. Can I ask you, how do you teach your kids to respect money, not be assholes, and have those good morals, but have cash and have that wealth?

   4. NHNick Huber36:07

      Money only amplifies the human. Money amplif- if you're a shitty person, money's gonna amplify that. If you're a great person, money can amplify that and can impact a lot of people. The mistake that people make is thinking that life is easy for people who are rich. And, and look, life is hard for everybody and it's relative. Of course it's relative. There are people who are trying to figure out where they're gonna get their next meal. I'm not trying to downplay that. But life is hard for everybody. No matter how wealthy you are, no matter how much money you are, have-You can't get away from all the basic, shitty administrative tasks that you gotta do in life. You can't get away from the hangover, you can't get away from the travel delays, you can't get away from the rain that just opens up and pours out of the sky when you're trying to host a barbecue in your backyard. You can't get away from the fact that, "Hey, oh my gosh, I'm 35 years old and I'm starting to get some fat that just sticks to my body, and I gotta figure out (laughs) how to keep it off." You can't get away from a lot of things. And also, relationships are really hard, and money amplifies a good relationship, and money amplifies a pos- a, a shitty relationship with your spouse or with your family. Having a lot of money is a ser- a pretty serious responsibility, and it all comes down to struggle and your ability to deal with stress. Stress is relative. Stress is relative. There's, let's just, an example, there's two people. They both get a flat tire in the middle of nowhere with no, uh, cell reception. One of the person runs a company, and they've dealt with a lot of problems and they've dealt with a lot of stress in their life. And one of the pers- one of the people that lives in their parent's basement has had everything taken care of for them, has a trust fund, has an American Express, and has super rich parents where they just take the jet and go where they need to go. The person who is used to ha- dealing with stress, they're gonna figure out how to sol- fix the flat, and they're gonna drive home, and they're gonna forget to tell their spouse about that flat tire at dinner. It's gonna be a non-issue for them. The other person, it's gonna ruin the week. They're gonna have anxiety about driving again. They're gonna tell everybody they know. It, that flat tire is a serious stress for them because they have no stress in their life. You have to teach your kids, I'm gonna teach my kids, how to struggle with grace. I'm going to let them practice making decisions. I'm not gonna put them in a bubble so that all the decisions are made for them, and if they get out into the real world and it's time for them to make decisions but they have no practice and they're horrible decision-makers. And I'm gonna let them struggle. I'm gonna, I'm not gonna protect them from hardship, and hurt, and pain. I'm not gonna coddle them. And I think if I can teach them how to struggle with grace and deal with hard things, you know, with a positive attitude, I think that they're gonna raise, I, I think that I'll be able to raise decent kids.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings38:36

      How do you determine between hardship and pain that you're willing to let them go through, versus hardship and pain that you will let them, or you will actually jump in on? Say, child is cycling too fast on bike. Chance of falling off and hurting themselves, well, good, you should learn that you shouldn't cycle too fast on a slippery surface, or close to other people, but also could hurt themselves. You don't wanna see Timothy crying. He's gonna have a cut on his leg.

   6. NHNick Huber39:04

      Mm-hmm.

   7. HSHarry Stebbings39:04

      You're gonna have to clean that up. What is too much?

   8. NHNick Huber39:07

      It's, th- that's the ultimate question of life. How much do you protect your kids? How much do you coddle them? And how much do you let them figure out and solve their own problems? A wealthy person has a high school kid who gets a DUI. They get a DUI. They have two options. They call their friend who they play golf with, who is the judge, and get them off the hook, or they make their kids spend two nights in jail and live with the consequences of that DUI. I'd like to think that I'm gonna make my kids live with those, the consequences of their decisions. They're gonna live that if they make a poor decision, if they drive their car too fast and crash it, if they don't put a case on their iPhone and it shatters, they're going to live with the consequences of that poor decision. If they ride their bike too fast and they fall, they're gonna live with it. I just hope that I can teach them to not make those big mistakes that can screw up your life.

   9. HSHarry Stebbings39:55

      Does your wife agree?

   10. NHNick Huber39:57

       You know, this might be a, a touchy subject, but I think that my job and her job are totally different.

   11. HSHarry Stebbings40:03

       Okay. Well, how, how so? I'm always learning. You're teaching me here, Nick.

   12. NHNick Huber40:08

       Well, look, there's a, there's a thousand ways to raise a great kid. And I know people who think about things totally different and are gonna raise amazing kids. But my wife's role, and her natural ability, is to care for them, and protect them from pain, and nurture them, and teach them how to be loving. My job as an adult is, especially for my boys, is to teach them to be strong. I, I have to raise strong kids that can deal with hardship. And we have, so we have two different roles there.

   13. HSHarry Stebbings40:34

       I, I, I like the separation. I, I, I think

8. 40:37 – 44:10

   How to Choose a Life Partner

   1. HSHarry Stebbings40:37

      to Warren Buffett's statement on, uh, many people have said this, but the most important decision you'll ever make is the partner that you choose in life. Can I ask you, but it sounds academic in how I'm asking it, quite a romantic question. When you were thinking about the partner selection process, what did you want in the partner that you chose for life?

   2. NHNick Huber40:55

      People get way too serious about trying to f- to find that person. I think if you find somebody who you're physically attracted to, you're emotionally stimulated, mentally and emotionally stimulated by, and you can trust them, and you can... That's number one. If you can trust them, um, odds are, you can make a marriage work. That sounds brash, but many people are way too picky today about who they marry. They should've gotten married a long time ago to one of those girls that they thought wasn't perfect in some way. But me and my wife have very similar moral views, and how we think about household responsibilities, and jobs, and who does what. And she thinks, and I think as well, that her raising kids is miraculously and 10 times more important than a career. The child that you create is more, is, is way more important than her having a career. And she is also in that camp. Many people aren't, and that's okay. But in my, in our house, my, my job is to, uh, take care of the finances and be a good dad, and be around, and do all the things I'm supposed to do. And her job is to take care of these kids, and, and grow human beings, which I think is a little bit more important than growing a business for somebody who you don't even have equity in that business. (laughs)

   3. HSHarry Stebbings42:12

      I, I speak to a lot of people about parenting, and actually, one thing that they say, man or woman, but on the one who stays at home, they say actually that the hard thing is the lack of mental stimulation. And you come home at the end of the day, you've been firing all day, you've been doing deals, you've been doing, uh, tweets, p- podcasts, you name it, but like, even stress testing your mind across many different disciplines. And respectively, they've been bringing up children, but it's not intellectually always as stimulating and challenging. And for the person who's been working, it creates this chasm, where it's like, "What did you do?" "Oh, I looked after the kids." It's the same.Is that ever a challenge? Do you worry about it kind of not being intellectually stimulating enough?

   4. NHNick Huber42:55

      Yeah, I'm exhausted when I get home. Like, I'm gonna get off this interview, and I got three more meetings today, and then I gotta work out, and then I'm gonna get to dinner with her, and yes, I'll have to turn it on to pull up some more energy to have a conversation with her. But look, we have ch- a lot of childcare. We have a nanny. We ha- the kids are in school. My wife has a lot of friends. She has a packed social schedule. She has workouts that she goes and does. She has more girlfriends that she goes and spends time with, and I think it's really... The sad part is, is that women are so isolated. They're so isolated. There's no community. Uh, 50 years ago, in small-town America, all the sisters and siblings and friends lived on one block, and they were popping in each other's houses, and they were having dinner constantly, and it was, it was a community. They were raising kids as a community. The women were together. And today, men build businesses in lonely environments, and women raise kids in lonely environments, and it can be really hard if you have that traditional structure. Now, obviously not everybody does what my family does, but...

   5. HSHarry Stebbings43:59

      Can I ask you, what do you think of today's state of parenting? You mentioned that, you know, they have separate roles, but also, like, the cycling and, you know, letting your child fall versus not. Do you think we mollycoddle

9. 44:10 – 49:00

   How to Raise Children

   1. HSHarry Stebbings44:10

      our children too much today?

   2. NHNick Huber44:11

      Oh, God, yes, absolutely. I think the number one thing that you can do to set your children up for failure is to protect them from the fact that life is brutal. Life is hard. Life is hard. You have hard decisions to make. It's hard dealing with people. It's hard making money. It's hard working for companies. It's hard staying in shape. It's hard building relationships. It's hard having friendships. Everything worth doing in life is hard. Anything worth doing in life is hard. Being married is hard. Being a parent is hard. Building a company is hard. Staying fit is hard. Playing golf is hard. Anything worth doing is hard in life, so why, why are, is our job as a parent to put a bubble around our kids so that they don't deal with any pain? It doesn't make any sense to me. The more well-off a parent and family can, is, the more they coddle their kids and the more they try to keep them from feeling pain, and like I was saying, dealing with these decisions and, and living with the consequences of poor decisions. So, if you're not gonna teach your kids to struggle and have a positive attitude through the struggle, then they're not gonna win at life, man. They're just not gonna win at life. They're gonna be soft. They're gonna blame other people for their problems. They're gonna have the victim mentality that we hate so much on, on social media. It's, it's a, it's a parenting problem, for sure.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings45:31

      What do you know now that you wish you'd known before you had your first child? I asked you this before, and you didn't tell me 'cause we said we'd save it for the show, but if you could call yourself up when your wife was going into labor that first time, what would you tell yourself?

   4. NHNick Huber45:44

      I wish we would have started a little bit earlier. I look at it as, now that I'm having these kids, and we're on the way up, and I have one that's about to turn six years old, and I can have mentally stimulating conversations with him, and I'm really starting to be able to teach him... In the early years, it's, it's, they want their mom, and their mom is the, the number one influence in them, and this kid is finally starting to find interest in Dad. "Dad, I wanna go on a hike. Dad, I wanna go camping. Dad, I wanna go play golf with you." That is so much fun and rewarding that I just wish that we would have got started earlier. I think it's a duty. It is my duty as a, uh, a person who I think, at least, that I have my shit together when it comes to parenting, that I'm gonna raise decent kids, it's my duty to create as many as I possibly can. I would, I wish that we'd have started a little bit earlier so we could have six, seven, eight kids. Kids are the most amazing thing about life. Why would you delay that? Kids make, kids made me stronger. They made me more focused. They made me more motivated. They made me more driven. They made me more protective of my time.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings46:43

      How did they make you more focused and driven?

   6. NHNick Huber46:46

      I had a, a measuring stick for time when that baby was born. Uh, it wasn't just wrinkles in the side of my eyes that became a little bit more apparent every year. I had a human being that was growing, and I know now that I'm, in, in seven days, I'll be six years post the birth of my first child. I got extremely motivated when that child was born. I got more focused on the future and generational planning, and I got more focused on what I can do to be a better human being. I was less interested in wasting time on the weekends. I was less interested in friendships that weren't, you know, mutual, mu- mutually beneficial, and I just improved. I, I improved. My entire goal in life is to be an old man sitting in a leather chair in a big-ass house with kids and, and grandkids running everywhere. I'm saying, like, tearing the shit out of my house. I want new babies that can barely walk bumping their head on my coffee table, and I want 12, 13-year-olds running around with Nerf guns, you know, busting holes in the walls. I want complete chaos, and I, you know... Maybe it's a holiday. Maybe we had played golf the day before, but I want to raise family members that want to spend time with me. That's my whole goal as a parent. Number one goal? Okay, yeah, we can talk about the hardship raising strong boys. I will have succeeded as a parent if my kids want to spend time with me even when they're no longer under my roof. After they go off to college, if they wanna be around me, I'll have succeeded.

   7. HSHarry Stebbings48:18

      Are you mirroring the family environment that you were brought up in, or is this the opposite of what you were brought up in?

   8. NHNick Huber48:24

      Yeah, it is, it is the environment I was brought up in. Yeah, we had three kids, small town, conservative values, went to church, gender roles were prevalent in my community and culture when I was young, and, uh, my wife is the same. Like, we both, we both are, just feel amazingly proud every morning. We go downstairs. We have our coffee. We sit in our chair, and we watch our three kids just play, and we play with them and hang out with them, and we look at each other almost several times a week, and we're like, "Can you believe that we built this? Like, look at these things. They're us."... it's spectacular.

   9. HSHarry Stebbings48:57

      I have to ask, you mentioning conservative values there,

10. 49:00 – 51:04

    Woke Mind Virus

    1. HSHarry Stebbings49:00

       I saw a TikTok, if you can believe it, I'm very down with the kids, Nick, um, but, uh, of, uh, Elon Musk saying that woke culture is probably the most dangerous mind virus there is today. I get in so much trouble for, like, everything I say on Twitter. You know, I said the other day, you know, one of the most important things is to not get fooled by logos and to hire young, hungry, ambitious people. I mean, it's a shit tweet, let's be honest, okay? Um, yeah, okay, I got massive hatred for being massively ageist-

    2. NHNick Huber49:32

       Mm-hmm.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings49:32

       ... because I said young. I mean, for fuck's sake, right? I'm not saying everyone needs to be young, but I'm intrigued, do you agree with the woke virus being so potentially damaging, and does it make you thoughtful of what you say?

    4. NHNick Huber49:47

       I definitely am careful about what I say. I'm not un-cancelable yet. I know that I need to be careful. I have a small window in time to build these companies, to capitalize on my personal brand, and I know that if I get canceled, it will set me back in my mission to get these points of view across to a lot of people. So, that being said, I think this woke mindset and virus is a tremendous advantage for me and my family. The people who buy into it are victims. The people who buy into it are blaming other people. The people who buy into it are focusing on things that are totally outside of their control. I don't do that, and my kids are not gonna do that. So, we're gonna have a competitive advantage, a competitive advantage against everybody who spends time focusing on things that don't matter, and worries about things that they can't control, and blames other people for their problems. So, absolutely, it's gonna be a- a net positive for me because people who raise their kids to be accountable, they raise strong kids, they raise their kids to suffer with grace, they raise their kids to be good stewards of money, it's gonna be playing the game on easy mode while everybody else is out pointing fingers at everybody else.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings50:49

       I- I- I like that in terms of finding the advantage (laughs) .

    6. NHNick Huber50:53

       (laughs)

    7. HSHarry Stebbings50:53

       Uh, I don't disagree with you. Uh, I- I do wanna ask you now, a lot of what we've said today actually centers around advice, and a lot of people gain comfort and security in advice.

11. 51:04 – 56:06

    Advice on Career, Wealth, & Being a Man

    1. HSHarry Stebbings51:04

       Meta-question, how do you advise people on advice, advice to take versus the advice not to take, and how to action it in the right ways? How do you think about that?

    2. NHNick Huber51:15

       The problem with advice is that it's- it- it gives you a false feel- sense of productivity. That's the problem. People are listening to this podcast, and they're nodding along, and they're thinking, "Wow, this podcast is making me better." And then they go home and get on YouTube, and they listen to more advice, and they get on Twitter and listen to more advice. And before they know it, they've listened to a full day of advice, and they're thinking, before they went to bed, "Wow, I'm doing a lot. This is great."

    3. HSHarry Stebbings51:36

       Uh-huh.

    4. NHNick Huber51:37

       If you're not doing anything in the real world, if you're not trying to advance your career, if you're not trying to get better, if you're not making yourself better by doing things that are hard and getting uncomfortable, the advice, using your words, the advice could mean fuck-all to you. Like, it does not matter. Like, if you're not in the trenches building a company, you're not gonna be able to listen to anything anybody says and actually apply it. Advice, unfortunately, is a lot of people's cope, and, you know, you can- you can take advice for 20, 30 years and get nowhere because you're not actually doing anything, and- and that's the hard part. And also is that everybody who gives advice is a successful person because, you know, you gotta have a resume to- to make your advice weighted, so all the people who have the most, you know, clout and, you know, status on Twitter, they're all successful people. And getting advice from successful people is very risky, because successful people look at the world totally different than you do, and than I- and that I do, and that we did when we were young and not successful yet. So, what you have is a lot of people who are not successful yet getting advice from successful people, and they're- the successful people are- they feel totally different about wealth and risk because they already have it and they're trying to protect it. They're not- they don't have it- it's not like that they don't have it and they're trying to get it. You see what I'm saying? They're in different phases of life, and what worked for them might not work for you.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings52:51

       Are you in wealth protection mode or in wealth creation mode, and can you be in both?

    6. NHNick Huber52:57

       I'm in both now, yes. I went from- I went from wealth creation mode early in my career, and- and look, this- this is just the perfect example. If somebody came to me, and they were 25 years old, and they were me, and they had my first storage deal that I built from the ground up that changed my entire life and made me millions of dollars, if they had that sitting on a desk in front of me right now, I would tell them not to do it, because I wouldn't do it, because it was too risky. Does that make sense? Like, the deal that we built for 2.9 million, it's worth 11 million now, I've made over $2 million personally on that deal, it changed my life, I would tell somebody probably not to do, looking back at what decisions we made at the very beginning of building that building. How- how messed up is that?

    7. HSHarry Stebbings53:35

       How did it feel when you made that $2 million? Does money make you happy?

    8. NHNick Huber53:39

       Yes, yes. Money is drastically underrated in this world today. The people who say that money doesn't matter are full of shit. I'll- I'll just be honest with you.

    9. HSHarry Stebbings53:48

       (laughs) How did it make you happier?

    10. NHNick Huber53:52

        Look, I mean, the identity of a man, like, let's just- let's just say it, nobody says it, the identity of a man, as a man, nobody gives a crap about you, nobody cares about you. When you're born and when you grow up, nobody cares. You have to f- go out, and it's your job in most families to go out and get what can make your family's life better, and every single thing in life worth doing costs money, whether it's healthcare that you have to have, whether it's an education, whether it's a- a safe car to take you around, and the building that you spend all your time in, money gets all of it. How can people argue that it's not critically important? And it's also, our identity as men is really wrapped up in this stuff, which is sad and is great and- at the same time, but it, uh, it's- it's- it's a reality.

    11. HSHarry Stebbings54:34

        How do you think about your identity still? Is it- is it father? Is it entrepreneur? Is it man, creator, a husband?

    12. NHNick Huber54:44

        I'm trying to... A- and look, it's my ego, I'll be- I'll be honest. My ego is pushing me to prove, I have something to prove, I have a chip on my shoulder, I have- I have something to prove, and it's that I can play the game of business at a very high level, very high level, but I can also do those things; be a good parent, be a good dad, stay physically fit.... maintain amazing relationships with people I, I love and know, and also have hobbies and other interests in life. I don't know very many well-balanced people. I'm trying to, I'm trying to make that happen.

    13. HSHarry Stebbings55:16

        Did you put that chip on your shoulder?

    14. NHNick Huber55:18

        Definitely.

    15. HSHarry Stebbings55:18

        Who, who did that?

    16. NHNick Huber55:19

        I preached it, I preached it into existence with my Twitter, and it's amplified because I'm out here tr- preaching about it. It's so weird how Twitter works. Like, my tweets, most of my tweets are, are just tweets directly to me. Like, they're, they're reminders and advice to me. I am giving advice to myself on the internet, and it just ha- so happens that 315,000 people have followed me because they think it applies to them as well. All this shit applies to me.

    17. HSHarry Stebbings55:43

        Do you measure value back to business from Twitter, and do you see an active correlation between Twitter and your business value creation?

    18. NHNick Huber55:50

        Oh, uh, it changed my life. Absolutely. It made me confident enough to take these big shots, and it gave me a competitive advantage in business. It gave me distribution, it gave me access to partners and talent, and it gave me, uh, a, a network.

    19. HSHarry Stebbings56:04

        You said network. Final one now, 'cause

12. 56:06 – 59:48

    How to Grow Your Network

    1. HSHarry Stebbings56:06

       I could talk to you all day. How do you think about networking? I hate the word n-network. It feels transactional, dehuman. I've loved this 'cause we've already opened up. I hate networking where it's like, "Here's my business card. Let's do deals."

    2. NHNick Huber56:19

       I think the average person networks all wrong. They just have the wrong mindset when it comes to networking. They have the mindset of, uh, when it comes to networking, "How can you help me?" And they walk around, they go to coffee, they go to meetups, they go to events, and they walk around with their hand out saying, "Me, me, me, me. Help me, help me, help me." And what you have, if you've ever been to a college networking event, you have a bunch of people with absolutely nothing to offer anybody else walking around shaking hands saying, "Help me, help me, help me, help me, help me, help me." It's, it's, it's, it's ignorant. It's, it's crazy. The way to build a network is to get really fucking good at something, period. And end of story. As soon as you become an expert at something and you prove to people that you know what you're doing, whether it's through making money that way or doing something in this regard, or having something on your resume, when you prove to people that you are an expert in some field, then all of a sudden they can get something from you. They can gain, they can benefit from you, and that's when your network explodes. My network has exploded because I am a card in other people's Rolodex. Think about it that way. As soon as you become a high value card in somebody else's Rolodex, your network will explode. Until then, yes, you'll have... And look, there's nuance. Yes, you're gonna have somebody who's well-connected that sees something in you and wants to help you with absolutely nothing in return. That does happen, and I hope to pay that forward because many people have done that for me. But your network will truly accelerate and will truly be valuable when you have something to give other people. So, so many people walk around with their hand out, "Help me, help me, help me," when they should be forgetting about networking. They should build a business. They should get rich. They should learn how to operate. They should learn self-storage. They should learn venture capital. They should become an expert first, and then they should go out and build a network. And the same thing happens with social media. Everybody wants a social media following. Everybody wants a lot of followers. Everybody wants to, to be an influencer. Very few people are willing to do the freaking work to get really good at something and make the money, and, you know, practice what they're preaching, and it, and it, it just doesn't work.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings58:17

       And the best way is to document the work as you do it. Like, take people with you, and like, and I, I knew nothing about Venture when I started (laughs) . But people were like, "Go with me on the journey," and everyone likes to see development in themselves in someone else.

    4. NHNick Huber58:31

       Mm-hmm.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings58:31

       And so, uh, it's, I find that the best way to learn, but bring people with you. Final one. I always get told, "Never meet your mentors, uh, or never meet your idols. They'll always disappoint you." Do you agree with that statement?

    6. NHNick Huber58:44

       I think that that's a, that's a very encouraging, beautiful thing about life. And yes, I would agree with it. I think people could meet me, and I would let them down in so many ways with my competence, with my ability, with the way my businesses are run. And I think it's a beautiful thing about life, in that you don't have to be spectacular, you don't have to be perfect to do, to do amazing things. Like, that should be inspiring. It should be inspiring that the men that are at the top of the, you know, the echelon of the most wealthy people in the world are s- are broken in some areas of life. That's inspiring to me. It makes me not feel that bad that I am broken in so many areas of my own life.

    7. HSHarry Stebbings59:21

       (laughs) Uh, where are you most broken?

    8. NHNick Huber59:24

       I'm always trying to improve. Ev- every area. I'm addicted to Twitter. I'm addicted to... I, I have to really fight this god complex that influencer status brings. Health, fitness, I have lots of a- ar- areas to improve there. Um, my hobbies, I'm, I'm, I'm horrible at golf, and, and still fighting the good fight.

    9. HSHarry Stebbings59:45

       (laughs) You've always got to fight the good fight there. Uh,

13. 59:48 – 1:04:27

    Quick-Fire Round

    1. HSHarry Stebbings59:48

       I, I wanna finish on a quickfire, Nick. So I say a short statement, you give me your immediate thoughts. Does that sound okay?

    2. NHNick Huber59:53

       Oh. Oh, boy. Here we go.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings59:54

       Okay. So what single piece of content has had the most impact on you?

    4. NHNick Huber59:58

       Uh, I read a book called Entrepreneur Leadership by Dave Ramsey, and it, and it wasn't a book that's super tactical, but it was a book about how he built his companies and how he thinks about dealing with people, and I think every single problem in this world is a people problem, and that had a massive influence on me.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings1:00:13

       You can have dinner with one person, dead or alive. Who's that person and why?

    6. NHNick Huber1:00:18

       I'd pick Chris Powers in Fort Worth. 'Cause he's a friend of mine, so I will have dinner with him. But I, I just think he's a, he's a badass.

    7. HSHarry Stebbings1:00:25

       You can make one public company investment and hold it for 10 years. What's the company?

    8. NHNick Huber1:00:30

       Meta.

    9. HSHarry Stebbings1:00:32

       Why?

    10. NHNick Huber1:00:33

        It's a beautiful business. Zuckerberg's a stud. And why would you try to invent, reinvent the wheel? Or Google? Yeah, I mean, I have, I have a lot of public equities and they're all... A lot of money in public equities, and it's all FAANG. And it's gonna stay that way, 'cause those are the best companies in the history of the world, and why would you try to reinvent the wheel?

    11. HSHarry Stebbings1:00:52

        What have you changed your mind on in the last 12 months?

    12. NHNick Huber1:00:55

        Well, the big one is that I previously thought that everybody should be an entrepreneur and a manager of people, and now I'm realizing that that's just not the case, and most people are better off, uh, going to work for somebody.

    13. HSHarry Stebbings1:01:05

        "I'm spending my 30s replacing cheap shit I bought in my 20s." Nice tweet. What are you replacing now?

    14. NHNick Huber1:01:13

        I was extremely frugal, and it was to the point where I would not make radical decisions about the cost-benefit analysis of buying things for my family and my house and me, personally. So, I'm replacing my wardrobe, I'm replacing my equipment, I'm replacing our vehicles, I'm replacing our mattresses, just all the, all the shit that I cheap- cheaped out on that I, that there actually is value in paying, paying up a little bit.

    15. HSHarry Stebbings1:01:38

        What are you most concerned about in the world's day and age?

    16. NHNick Huber1:01:41

        I think there's a lot of really, really smart people who could build amazing companies if they started small and had a small goal, but instead, they get caught up in the hoopla of entrepreneurship culture on the internet, and they're trying to build massive unicorn venture capital-backed companies, and I think it's gonna burn out a lot of brilliant people, and it's gonna... And they're gonna end up going to get jobs instead of building wealth and, and being their own boss and, and, uh, succeeding at entrepreneurship.

    17. HSHarry Stebbings1:02:08

        What question do you least want to be asked in interviews?

    18. NHNick Huber1:02:12

        The uncomfortable stuff is the, just the insecurities, and the fact that I started on third base, and, um, I- I like to... I like people to think about me as a self-made person, but I'm not a self-made person, and that's uncomfortable.

    19. HSHarry Stebbings1:02:25

        If you could be CEO for the day of one company, what company would it be?

    20. NHNick Huber1:02:31

        Shit, man. I feel like I'm trying to lead 10 companies. I would, I would decline. I would politely decline the, uh, invitation because it's not easy being a CEO. I think they're underpaid.

    21. HSHarry Stebbings1:02:39

        Question for you. Could you not do more if you did less? You said there about 10 companies. I do believe in focus. Do you not think sometimes you are great, but you could build one great company rather than 10 good companies?

    22. NHNick Huber1:02:55

        Yeah. I'm trying to figure out what company has... is the best business and, and the, and requires that level of focus. I'm, I'm a very good gatherer of, of talent, and my plan right now is to gather talented people and let them do their thing with extreme levels of delegation, meaning I'm, I'm not that involved. So, um, I'm trying to enable people and, and layer on the synergies around my brand and my distribution and my ability to attract talent and get good operators and just see what they can do. And some of them will win, some of them will lose, um, but I- I like my strategy so far. But yeah, long term, I think it'll, it'll be a power law for sure with what I'm doing.

    23. HSHarry Stebbings1:03:32

        Penultimate one. What's the single best investment under $500?

    24. NHNick Huber1:03:36

        I got some, uh, uh, foot, foot, uh, shoe inserts that changed m- the way I feel. Like, it makes my body less sore, and, uh, they're called PowerStep. They're called PowerStep shoe inserts, and they raised up the arch of my foot, and I just feel a lot better when I'm active and running around and my feet don't hurt.

    25. HSHarry Stebbings1:03:54

        Final one, Nick. Where will you be in 10 years time? What do you want Nick Huber to be in 2033?

    26. NHNick Huber1:04:00

        I wanna be on a mountain chasing... It's, it's August, so early season hunt on a mountain with a bow in my hand, and my 15-year-old son in a tent with me.

    27. HSHarry Stebbings1:04:12

        Nick, listen, I've so enjoyed doing this. Uh, the, the hard thing about my job is often people don't tell you how they really feel. Um, I think we did get there today. Uh, I've so enjoyed this, so thank you so much for being so brilliant.

    28. NHNick Huber1:04:24

        You're an exceptional interviewer, man. You did a really good job. Thank you.

Episode duration: 1:04:27