Lushkills: Chris Sparks
(Lushkills was formerly Lush Radio.)
Chris Sparks and Radha Kotliarsky discuss what it takes to be a good leader, paradigm shifts, and the importance of routines.
Audio recording below (47 mins). Full transcript below.
Podcast Transcript
Note: transcript slightly edited for clarity.
Radha: Hi, Chris. This is Chris Sparks. How's it going?
Chris: It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Radha: This is your fourth podcast of the week?
Chris: Making the rounds. I mean obviously they're getting more important as we go.
Radha: That was the correct answer. I have been working through . . . First of all, you are the founder of The Forcing Function, and retired, but not retired, professional poker player. And I've been working through the workbook that you just recently put out that we talked about with Marianna last week, and it's been really fun.
Chris: Thank you. You're one of the first to think so. I'm very glad you're enjoying it, and hopefully getting a lot out of it as well. It's . . . Experiment Without Limits is the first thing that I've been able to see through to perfection, hopefully, but at least to publishing, and yeah. It's been my core focus the last seven months, so to have it out there in the world and people using it as a way to inspire action in their own lives, for me, is really exciting, because that was . . . You know, the whole impetus for me starting it.
Radha: Very cool. And it was . . . You sort of took what you do for a living with The Forcing Function and brought it to the public.
Chris: Yeah. Yeah, I mean that's a very concise summary. Yeah. I would take a quick step back as far as . . . you know, The Forcing Function is something I've been doing for three years, and I started it when I realized that my capabilities and my ambitions in life were not going to match up. That the trajectory that I was on was not leading to the things that I wanted to accomplish, and starting to have informal conversations around these lines with friends of mine who had become entrepreneurs, realized that this need to perform at peak was a very common one, and as you mentioned in the beginning, you know, I'm pretty successful these days as a poker player, and used to be extremely successful, and a lot of these skills that were instrumental for me to compete against the best players at the highest limits actually transfer over very well to knowledge work. To how do you make better decisions, how do you sustain levels of peak energy, peak attention? How do you make the most of very limited time? How do you learn faster? All of these skills that were on the path for me rising to the top now frame a lot of the conversations that I have.
So at The Forcing Function, we've been doing workshops and retreats and events around these themes for a couple years now. I also work with a select number of entrepreneurs who I see as on the path to shaping the world, and trying to accelerate that progress. And this whole project started when I found myself asking the same questions over and over again and getting the same answers in return, and realizing that I needed a common vocabulary around some of this stuff (a curriculum, if you will) so that I could spend less of my limited time teaching and more trying to debug or deconstruct or come up with a plan together. And so what this started was almost a wiki of "What are the things that I do that most move the needle to performing at my best, and what have I seen generalizes the most with the people that I work together, the things that when they put into practice have the most impact?" And as what usually happens with these types of projects, the scope continued to widen, and it got to the point that it was silly for me to keep it to myself and I wanted to share it with the world.
At a similar time, I had this really large paradigm shift. So for context, to compete at the highest levels of poker, you win generally through information asymmetry, which is just a fancy way of saying "I know more than you". Right? "I keep my cards closer to my chest." And so by definition, I am always trying to extract information while revealing as little as possible. Sometimes useful as a coach, but more often not, because it doesn't create an atmosphere of trust and empathy.
Radha: Right.
Chris: And at the same time realizing that it was not knowledge that was holding anyone back. It was that they knew what to do, but they weren't finding a way to take action on it, and that the most useful thing was to uncover this core cause that was preventing action. That . . . What I had learned, my knowledge in itself was worthless without this action component, and therefore I could afford to give it all away, and not lose anything, because it would give people the tools that they needed in order to make progress, but not hand over the keys to the kingdom, if you will. And so it was I decided to take everything that I had learned and give it all away.
Radha: Very cool. That was dope. Okay. So how do you balance the idea of . . . Like you said, the trust part, and the mental game, with building honest pathways for people to actually take the action, be productive? Because you said there's two sides, right? You said that there is the poker, I guess, side of it where you're using mental and you're using manipulation and you're having to play with psychology, and then you have the productivity and putting the action and moving forward.
Chris: Yeah, as I understand that it's the natural tradeoffs that come from trying to build consensus and empathy but also trying to elicit information and understanding. Right? You're trying to get on the same page but on the same side you're trying to detect the nuance. What's not being said. And that is, like, a dance, those types of conversations, where some of the skills that I had learned as a poker player, for example, is how do you discern signal from noise, in that . . . You know, whether you're sitting at a live poker table or through the intermediary of a screen, there are so many things happening at once, and you have to discern what is relevant and what is irrelevant. What actions taken actually have a factor? What's not being said, in essence? And the problem that people come to you, whether as a client or as a customer, is never actually the true problem, and your job is to uncover that. What's not being said, right, through the context? Through the nuance?
And at the same time, needing to build trust. And the fastest way to build trust is with early results. And so I'm always starting with "What is their low-hanging fruit?" And that's usually what has worked well for them in the past. What are the conditions that if created lead to being productive, or being a better version of themselves? And I mean that's not rocket science. Anyone listening to this can do that right now. It's like think back to the time when you were most productive. What were you doing then that you're not doing now? And these are really good ideas to put into practice. But the really power of that is trying to uncover, well, "Why is that not happening right now?" Cause there's a true and valid reason why that's not happening. Maybe you don't believe that it's important. Maybe you don't believe you're worthy. Maybe you don't believe that there's a good reason to. It's like there's all of these reasons that are kind of higher on the hierarchy of values that prevent us from taking action, but if you can reconcile those and uncover them, it allows you to strike a compromise that allows you to move forward.
And you know, an object at rest tends to stay at rest, but a body in motion tends to stay in motion. So once we're moving forward, we see more of the horizon. We're more aware of other opportunities. And that's how I see my role and my skill that I have a hard time putting into words, sometimes. Is just being this objective third party observer who can remind someone of what they already know and help them get out of their own way.
Radha: Right. How do you . . . Do you see whether someone is a good leader or not? Can you make a good leader? Is that a trait that you just already have, do you think?
Chris: Well, embedded in that is the assumption that I know what a good leader is, 'cause I think that's really relative, and I see leaders as being out in front of the troops, right? Setting the example that they can show what needs to be done without saying as much. And a lot of the entrepreneurs who I work with, you know, they're starting to hire teams and starting to have that first level of hierarchy underneath them, and there is the need to set the tone and set the direction so that things can happen when they're not there. Right? That if . . . A common problem that I see is that we become the bottleneck, because it is so hard to let go of control. Especially, you know, when a business is going from a business of one to a business of a few. This is something that strongly resonates with myself. That the more we are able to give up control and be okay with small things going wrong, the more that we empower our team to take chances, 'cause that's the only way that they learn.
And being a leader, I see in that sense, is being very clear with what the intended outcome is. Like what is success? What is that success important? Right? Why is this company in existence? I mean clearly to make money, but there has to be some sort of higher purpose that's sold. You know, what is the . . . How are people helped by this company being in existence, and what is this person's specific role in assuring that?
Right? The more that someone has ownership and autonomy, the more they feel empowered to take action in that sense. And I think there's this misconception, we'll say, in the media through you know, movies, montages, et cetera, that you have born leader. And clearly personalities are molded a great deal when we grow up. You know, through our familial environment, through peers, et cetera. But I also believe that leadership can be learned. That it is a skill just like any other, and by building the subskills of, you know, being empathetic, understanding what motivates people, being someone who others trust and look towards for direction and can follow, who they like . . . Right? So if someone is going to break their back for you they have to like you. They have to believe in you.
Radha: Right.
Chris: These are all things that you can have a natural head start but certainly can be learned. And I like to think about, you know, what are the skills that are so important that I'm going to be learning them in some form for the rest of my life? You know, being a leader. Recognizing talent. Knowing how to delegate. Like these are things that if you have a vision of a certain size, like these are necessary skills you're going to have, so might as well just start compounding now. Might as well make the mistakes while they're cheap. So I kind of got it in roundabout . . . Like can I recognize when someone is a leader? The challenge is that I'm missing half of that equation, is I don't see their team. But I can discern things in what they tell me that help me get at if they are leading well, or if so what's holding them back.
So some things that I'm looking for, for example, is how they describe people on their team. What verb tense do they use? Are they using "I"? Are they using "we" type things? When it's ownership, are they fully handing off things or are they needing to, you know, have their hands in all the cookie jars? When things are going wrong, is it themselves at blame, or are they handing off the blame to others? Right? These are kind of commonalities in the way that people describe others that is a hack of getting at, you know, "How do they see themselves?" And if they see themselves as a leader, a lot of times other people will see them that way as well.
Radha: Crazy. But I also . . . I mean I was just having this discussion literally five minutes ago about how . . . We were just talking about how stressed out I was today, for instance, and I was like "I think I need an assistant."
Chris: Hmm.
Radha: And then we got into this conversation about how taking the time to say what I need for the assistant to get done would take . . . I would take less time just doing it myself. And that's my biggest problem, of like I'm not good at delegating because I need that control, and I'm also just convinced I'm gonna waste my time and energy trying to teach someone else.
Chris: Yeah. I think that's a common fear that we all have, is that no one can do this better than me. Which in some instances is true. But also if we need to do everything that . . . We reach a ceiling. We have a hard limit on what we can or actually want to do. And so there needs to be things that maybe we are the best at, but others can handle just as well if you train them. Right? And it's creating this right system and process that other people can take on. It's also realizing the things that we thing we're good at, but actually there's someone who is better. There were a couple things that were very close to my identity, I think marketing being one of them, because I have a marketing degree. I should be an expert in marketing. But it's clear that it's something that I both don't like doing, which makes it harder to be good at anything, or that I'm out of practice. The game has changed. So to say. And recognizing those things that I keep putting off . . . Like those are usually good candidates for someone else to take ownership of.
I would also question another assumption, is like I think assistant can be very useful, and it's something that I recommend to a lot of my clients when their personal life is getting in the way of business progress. I mean that, meaning that they're having to fulfill a lot of personal obligations at the office. It's like the entrepreneur's time is usually the bottleneck. And so if that time is unlocked, right, that time in the office can be spent completely on the business. That's worth a lot, right? That directly affects the bottom line. It's like a time arbitrage. But I also do notice sometimes . . . Not saying this is true in your case, but sometimes where people say they need an assistant, and then you list out the things that they want the assistant for, and it's things that easily can automate or have a service for. Or it's like are you . . . Do you really need to be doing these things at all?
Radha: Right.
Chris: Right? And that's what I find useful. I recommend everyone do this, is just do an audit of your time. Like, where a typical day goes. And the next step is, you know, what is the hourly rate of that activity? And I think in any given day there are things that we do that are ten dollar an hour or less activities, and like that one hour a day that's a thousand dollars an hour. And I mentioned this idea of arbitrage. If we can just stop doing some of these ten dollar an hour things, we have more time for the things that actually matter. And you know, only worrying about bringing on the overhead of another person once we've exhausted ourselves at these high-value activities.
Radha: I like this. You just inspired me to audit my day.
Chris: It's powerful.
Radha: What about routine? Is that crucial in how you work?
Chris: Yes and no. So I think some people would expect from the way that I talk about some of this stuff that I take it to extremes, and I think that there's diminishing returns with all this. Right? So while I'm extremely regimented in some areas of my life, I'm extremely loose in others. Right? Where I think about this idea of fragility, in that if everything has to go exactly right, that is very fragile. And fragility is very dangerous because when something breaks, it can take a while for us to get back on track. Right? It's more important for us to have a seven out of ten every day than to shoot for ten and then have the occasional one or two, and we disappoint ourselves. So that's kind of a long way of saying that I have very strict . . . And I don't think it was strict in terms of I'm a disciplinarian, I think it's strict in terms of like, you know, these are non-negotiables for me. This is how I enjoy spending my day. Ways that . . . Things that I do every single day.
So for me the first two hours of my day is the same every day. You know, I have my one-hour morning routine, which I'm happy to talk about, and then I spend an hour on my most important thing of the day. And my approach is if those two hours go right, I can do whatever I want the rest of the day. And the trick is if those two hours go right, I've built up so much momentum that everything else kind of flows downhill. It becomes much easier. But . . . And so I have a general plan of what I'd like to do the rest of the day. I have a couple priorities in mind. I have a schedule that I look at to kind of get me back on track. But I give myself the freedom that if, you know, I'm opportunistic. If other things come up I'm free to switch, because I know that I put myself in a position to win today, and I've made progress on my most important thing. And if I do that every day, like, the rest will take care of itself.
So I mean, I think that routines are really important, but everything shouldn't be a routine. Right? It's a collection of habits. And—
Radha: That's right. I was just about to bring that up in your workbook. That's right.
Chris: Yeah. So I mean the four that I always talk about . . . I mean as I said, starting with the morning, because you win the first hour you win the day type of thing, I think the morning and evening routine are really nice bookends. So, you know, how you're spending your first hour, how you're spending your last hour. Are you setting yourself up for success? Are you setting yourself up to relax and recharge and get a good night's sleep? And then I think about you know, what's my first half-hour when I get to the office, and what's my last half hour before I leave? When I get to the office, like do I know what I'm going to do first when I sit down? Have I gotten rid of distractions? Do I have everything I need? Is my desk somewhere that I'm going to enjoy sitting at for a while? When I end the day, like . . . Is everything in a good point to pick up where I left off? Have I collected all of the open loops? Like anything that has happened, can I externalize it and write it down so I have it for tomorrow? Do I have like a basic plan for the next day?
And having those two bookends in place around the workday, same thing, allows me to have a very clear separation between work and home, where . . . I mean for many entrepreneurs, I find that there's this blurring between their business and their home life, which means that they're always on, which means that they never recharge, which means they never operate at a hundred percent, because they're always in this weird in-between of "Am I working? Am I not working?" And so I have . . . I think that's another area that I'm pretty regimented that's actually very helpful, is you know, when I have my hard stop for the day, which is usually 5:00 PM, I try not to think about work again until the next day. And by having that time to recharge, it allows me to be fully focused when I am in the office, because I have that strong intentionality behind it.
Radha: What's your morning routine?
Chris: So—
Radha: First hour.
Chris: So my first hour, the things that I do every day, are journal, meditate, and exercise.
Radha: Okay.
Chris: So journaling is a variation of morning pages, if anyone here is a fan of Artist's Way. It's just writing a couple pages of whatever comes to mind. I shoot for three, but I usually get two. And it's just kind of getting all of the verbal diarrhea out. I think of it as "I am making space for ideas." The brain's a poor storage device, and if I get everything out there's more space for the good. I say "exercise". It's usually some form of yoga. I do some bodyweight exercises as well. Just trying to get the body moving, right? It's like creating momentum through physical movement, get outside, get some sun type of thing. It's the biggest way that I've found to sustain energy throughout the ways to reduce these energy leaks in my body through movement in the morning.
And then finally, you know, meditation, which . . . "I am but an egg". I'm still very early on. I get ten minutes every day, and I try to get more, but usually it's just ten. And I see that as "If I can subtly improve my subjective experience of the day, that will percolate outward." That I'm, you know, ten percent more present with the person across from me. That I'm ten percent more focused on the task in front of me, that I'm able to catch myself slightly earlier when my thoughts start to drift off or I start to talk to myself in an unhelpful way. That I'm giving myself the tools to succeed. So if I do those three things in my experience I'm like ninety percent to have a good day. And conversely, if things are going off the rails that's what I go back to, is if I haven't done these, you know, now is the time. This becomes the most important thing, to get myself back on track.
You know, after I've done that I set a timer for an hour, and I've already decided what my most important thing for the day is. You know, for the last few months it's been workbook-related. You know, writing and editing. Now I finally get to start writing for my blog again, which I never thought I would say that I'm actually excited for. You know, 'cause I get to choose what I write about instead of—
Radha: Yeah.
Chris: Having to write about the same thing. And I do that for an hour. Timer goes off, and then I go off and do whatever I want after that.
Radha: Amazing. So with all those being said, a lot of people that I work with, including myself, no routine. Entertainment industry, it does feel like we're always on. We're always working. Nightlife. During the day. It never ends, it never stops. Do you encourage to have a separation between personal and business life?
Chris: I think it's essential. I mean I can certainly understand if hours are irregular, but I see that you need to recharge. This is very well-established in the literature, that performance comes from a series of sprints and rests, and especially in creative fields where you are dependent on the peaks, right, you need a breakthrough, that people are paying you for your best . . . You know, think about performance, think about finishing that song or that article that they want your best effort. That requires proportional time recharging from that effort. And so yeah, I see this leakage where someone is always on, it means that they're never operating at a hundred percent.
Radha: Right.
Chris: Which is . . . Like that's where . . . You know, think about like the earthquake system where an 8.0 earthquake isn't slightly more than a 7.0. It's double. Right? So a 10 is twice as valuable as a 9, is twice as valuable as an 8. And then the same thing, it's even if you have less time available, having more of that time where you're a 10 rather than a 7 is multiple times as valuable. I describe this to a lot of clients as a power law, that your most important hour is worth more than the rest of your day combined. And a common thing that I see with creatives, and a reason that they feel like they're always on, is that they have a hard time saying "no". Not to cast a broad brush. I think this is something that we all could improve upon. But it all reduces down to this question of, "What do you want, and what is the path towards what you want?" And the more clarity you get around that question, the more firm your litmus test on, "What are the things that I say 'yes' to?", which are things that are "hell yes!", right? And what are the things that I say "no" to, because they aren't on that path? They aren't a "hell yes!"
And yeah, I question anyone who feels like they can't afford to turn it off and say like, "What are the things you're saying 'yes' to that aren't as important?" Because saying 'yes' to things that are less important, treating them as a distraction, right, because they're costing you from performing your best on the things that truly are.
Radha: Okay. Yeah. This is great. This is making me think a lot about my lifestyle.
Chris: That's the idea.
Radha: Amazing. I think the . . . Yeah. Digging into the workbook and everything you're saying is amazing. And I've been recommending you to everyone. I'm working through it myself, and this is giving me even more layers to think about. I want to talk about what's next. The workbook is out. What happens now? You're going back to your blog. Still with your clients. Is there a bigger picture? Is there more that you wanna do with the workbook? More stuff you wanna do with the public?
Chris: Yeah. Thanks. I mean it's something I actually have the space to think about now, so it feels like things are coming into focus. So yeah, putting out Experiment Without Limits this week is super validating, because this is something that I've kept to myself for so long, or amongst, you know, a handful of clients. And that people are using it and benefiting from it creates what I call a positive feedback loop. That people are telling me what's useful and how it's benefiting them, and that motivates me to make it even better, so it's even more beneficial. And I'd like to use this as a platform to put more out into the world. So . . . And right now it's just in digital form. I'd love to have a print version that people can have, you know, physically manifested in front of them, so they're more likely to do it. I've found that the value of accountability, having peers who are on the same path, who are facing similar challenges or can propose solutions from an outside perspective, is incredibly valuable.
So I mean something I've been meaning to do for a while is create a tight-knit community of people who are tackling big problems that are interested in self-improvement and making steps in this direction. So, you know, I'm definitely looking forward to doing that. I also have a memoir-style book coming out. I am crossing my fingers and saying early next year, but it's been two years and counting, so who knows? You know, it's one of those things that . . . Last mile problems. I've been on the last ten percent for ninety percent of the time. Tentatively titled Inflection Point, for you know, this is from mathematics. The point in the curve where your trajectory goes vertical. Right?
Radha: Yeah.
Chris: Where you're heading in what seems like a straight line and then you start running up the wall. And what are the things that you can put in place to cause this punctuated equilibrium in your evolution? And that gets a little bit more into my personal evolution. You know, how I rose to the top of the limits in poker, how I got into entrepreneurship, how I started to discover some of these techniques in a little bit more narrative form. It's the story behind these principles, if you will. So you know, getting back to that, continuing to refine and polish that, is something . . . You know, I'm excited to dust off. Yeah. I think that's a really good starting point, is just having these techniques more widely available.
My theme from last year, a phrase that just keeps popping up again in conversations, is the idea of "The biggest winner doesn't compete." I think moving from the poker world, where everything was something that you had over your competition, right? Information was something to be hoarded. And starting to shed that identity, that everything that I have learned is for public benefit and deserve to be shared. Trying to reduce those barriers, whether imagined or systemic, to sharing some of these ideas and techniques with a wider audience. Now that my cognitive constipation with putting this book out has cleared, I feel a little more freedom to be able to express myself in more of an affirmal form. And yeah, I'm excited to see what shape this takes, because at this point, you know, now that it's in people's hands I'm open to it going a number of ways.
Radha: I think it should be a textbook. I think it should be something that schools give to high school seniors, maybe, or college freshmen, and everyone goes through it and works through it for the first year. Like that's where I . . . It needs to be . . . This is what we need to be learning when we're just trying to figure ourselves out.
Chris: Yeah. I . . . I come back to a lot of this question of, you know, "Why am I here?" You know, my hope is that all of this experimentation and learning is for some sort of higher purpose. And I think it . . . When someone asked me a couple years ago . . . I mean this was in my more arrogant, tongue-in-cheek days, you know, what I wanted to accomplish, I said that I wanted to get a hundred people to quit their jobs. And that's kind of the, you know, judgmental assumption that, you know, a lot of people in jobs shouldn't necessarily be in that job. And I think that's not necessarily true of everyone, but I think we tend to settle a bit, and having high standards for ourselves is very useful.
But as I've been able to kind of refine that vision, I realize that it's more than that. That it's about empowerment. That I think we all will be entrepreneurs at some point, and that the meta-problem here is "How do you empower others to have a higher level of ambition?" And if I could encourage some subset of people to set their sights higher because they've realized that they truly are capable of anything, that the only thing separating them from these ambitious goals is becoming the type of person who can accomplish those, and with this system realizing that they can change their beliefs and values and behavior in any direction they require. That allows them to take on large challenges, which is just generally good for the world.
I think that entrepreneurship . . . It gets a lot of glorification in the public domain, but I think that understanding that failure is good, failure is how we grow and how we learn, and that the more people are empowered to take chances, the more likely some of these big, systemic problems we face in society will actually find the solutions or overcome the coordination problems we have in tackling them. That it's this feeling like we are able to make a difference that fulfills the prophecy.
Radha: Right. Completely agree with this. But I have met a lot of people that genuinely are just not ambitious people, and are happy with where they are. Like they are comfortable, and they want a simple life and they prefer a simple life.
Chris: Absolutely. And I know some of them myself, and I think in the past I would have thought "Well, like, they just don't know better."
Radha: Right.
Chris: But I . . . As I've matured I have realized that everything starts with our values, and if that someone is happy and fulfilled, that's all you can ask for. That it's impossible to judge anyone's success other than our own, because we don't know what values we're optimizing for.
Radha: Exactly.
Chris: And even some people who we would traditionally think of as successful, we're just projecting our own values onto them. It's like, well, we want that life, but . . . You know, even when someone's like "Oh, this guy, like he might get us to the moon." Well, maybe he just really wanted to hang out on an island and surf all day, and he can't help himself. Right? We can't—
Radha: Right.
Chris: Say from the outside who is successful and who is not. And who is to judge, so to say? But you know, I don't think that this is necessarily for everyone. But the base rate of people who are tackling large problems still is not as large as it can be, and I do know there are people out there who deep down know they can be doing more, and want to, but don't know how to get started. And I said I think a part of this is, you know, speaking to a younger version of myself, coming out of college, only thinking that I had the corporate road to go. Like that no other options existed. And it was only through fortuitous circumstances where . . . I mean this is a story for another show, where, you know, I had a corporate gig all lined up, and it completely fell apart at the last moment and I was . . . You know, I took the blue pill, so to say. I was forced to find another way to make a living. But a lot of the alternative universes that I live in end up with me, you know, sitting at a desk at a Fortune 500 company and, you know, some of this advice had I know it at the time . . . Maybe I would have set my sights higher, or at least looked elsewhere.
And I think we live in a world where, you know, information is everywhere. Anything can be learned, but because our time is limited, because our energy and attention are limited, we need to know where to focus those. We need to know where to start. And if we can understand ourselves we can uncover a way forward.
Radha: Right. Absolutely. How do you bring that back into building a team? How do you bring that mentality back into finding the right people that are going to have incentive to work for you rather than have ambitions to just do what you're doing and do it better?
Chris: Yeah, absolutely. So I think that if you understand what people value and what they're optimizing for, you can give them an offer that you can't refuse. I said I'm relatively new to delegation. I never had anyone on my team 'til a couple years ago, and I've somehow lucked into having an amazing team for . . . You know, shout out, if you guys are listening to this. And all I can offer them, one, is admission that they can be excited about autonomy, and that within the scope of what they signed up to do that they have freedom to pursue it the way they will. And you know, I can't offer a Silicon Valley you know, corporate type of salary, but I say "Hey, like I don't care when you come into work, how often you come in, as long as you're getting things done, you know, do it the way that you will." Right? That freedom and autonomy. So there's always a different dimension that you can optimize on. And at the same time my hope is that by being around me, seeing how a business is run, the . . . Many of the ways that I fail, hopefully they can you know, avoid those failures in the future.
When I decided I wanted to go into entrepreneurship . . . And I first started doing some marketing consulting, actually, and I quickly realized that my speed of learning was too slow. That because everything was dependent on me to make happen, I just wasn't . . . I didn't really know what I was doing, and the fastest way to learn was to join a company. And so I called this my six month MBA, in that I came on and led marketing a startup here in New York. No idea what I was doing, but luckily knew you know, ten to fifteen percent more than anyone else on the team about marketing, so I could be useful, at least. Or you know, throw my hours and body at the problem. And it was through that experience that I learned, you know, what are the best practices and also what are the ways that, you know, I don't want my company to run? And I hope that this can be a training ground for these guys, who've all you know, expressed an interest in starting their own company, or they all have their personal brand. They want to make an agency, they want to perform, they want to have a presence online. This is a way to learn while working on something that they believe in.
And like I said, I don't necessarily believe that everyone should be an entrepreneur, but I do think that everyone should think of themselves as an entrepreneur. It's like we live in a time where you cannot afford to have some form of personal brand. I'm not saying that everyone needs to go out and start tweeting and posting pictures of yourself on Instagram, but thinking about "How do you want people to think of you?" What do you want them to mention your name along with? "Oh, you have to talk to so-and-so because they're the best at x." What do you want x to be? Like even if you're working inside of a company, you are a brand. You are an entrepreneur within a company, and that we don't have the luxury anymore of just fitting into the system. We need to figure out how we can be a part of a larger system.
So I said, I have worked with people who are within large companies, who have a side hustle that they'd like to go full-time, or even just people who want to grow their group within the large company. I think the same principles apply. But a little extra ambition never hurt anyone.
Radha: Facts. That's great. Why are you playing poker again? Easy segue.
Chris: Yeah. Well, I always like to try to psychoanalyze myself, so what comes up? Something that was very difficult for me was transitioning from something that came relatively easy that others looked up to me, that I had high status, that I had this role of being an expert . . . Right? When I walked into a room of poker players, people turned around and listened to what I had to say, and I quickly found out when I became an entrepreneur that was no longer the case. I was the beginner again. And it's been, you know, a long journey of re-embracing that beginner’s mind and being okay with being the dumb one in the room, which is generally the position you want to be in. So that's certainly one dimension, is that there's still an attachment to doing something where I am one of the best, versus something where you know, every day I show up and wonder, you know, what the heck am I doing. Am I ever gonna figure this stuff out, right? And it's a small step forward every day, but still I look back fondly to you know, "Wow, this is easy."
There's clearly the financial incentive as well. I mean this fluctuates quite a bit seasonally, or even week to week, but you know, I'm still a very strong player and I still do very well playing, and I enjoy it quite a bit. It's like, you know, I've been doing it off and on for sixteen years. You know, millions and millions of hands, and I still learn something every day and realize how much there is to learn. And that's very exciting to me. And I've really enjoyed the challenge. I've always been extremely competitive, and it's a good outlet for those energies.
And finally, it's something that I've actually re-embraced. So I retired for the first time in 2011. I mean that's a whole 'nother long story in and of itself, but for five years, you know, it was like I shunned that part of myself. I didn't even mention poker to anyone. If I met someone new, I made up another story. I talked about other things that I was doing. It was . . . Like there were people who met me in this new phase of life, who knew me for years, who didn't know I had played poker. Because I think a part of me was embarrassed of that part of myself. It's zero-sum, versus . . . I saw myself as I wanna be this Elon Musk-ian type entrepreneur character.
Radha: Yeah.
Chris: And I also thought that if I shed that identity I would create space for a new one. And I've come to realize over time that, you know, first people find it very interesting, and that's like a nice gateway to get into rooms, if you can have a unique experience that others haven't had.
Radha: Right.
Chris: Right? You have information you can share that's unique, that a lot of my mental models and skills still come from that time. And that it's something that ties into what I'm doing now very well, that I should embrace this part of my personality rather than hide from it. So I've actually dived deeper into the poker world the deeper that I dive into entrepreneurship, and I see the two selves as symbiotic.
Radha: I like that. It all comes together. It's like a nice balance. You meet in the middle, basically.
Chris: Yeah. It's always an oscillation, right? And you think of like a pendulum or a continuum, and I'm moving between the two extremes, but I average out in the center. And I think this applies to many things of knowing where you are in the spectrum, and just rebalancing towards the center.
Radha: Great. Thanks for coming on. We're gonna cut it. This is good. This is like exactly . . . Wow. Yeah. Talked about everything. Is there anything else you want to add? Last final note, last thought?
Chris: Yeah. I mean this was a lot of fun. Thanks for letting me go on. It's always interesting to see what comes out. The first answer is usually the right one. Some of these answers I didn't know, but when I say them out loud they really resonate. Yeah, this has been . . . I really enjoyed this. If anything I said today resonated, I would love to hear from you. If you're interested in Experiment Without Limits, which is my latest workbook, as mentioned it's available for free download. That's theforcingfunction.com/workbook. And a theme that we returned to a couple times today was "How do you get started?" You know, all the things you can improve. Where is the first place to start? And my first crack at that was I created a short quiz, which I call "The Performance Assessment," which is designed to uncover your biggest opportunities for growth. So some of the things we talked about today, planning routines, delegating to a team, are included in there. And if you take that, I'll give you some personalized feedback on where I'd recommend you'd get started. That's theforcingfunction.com/assessment.
Feel free to reach out. If you have any questions, want to continue the conversation you can reach me on all the usual social media channels, @SparksRemarks.
Radha: And all this will be in the description as well. Thanks so much for coming on, Chris.
Chris: Thank you. See you.