Modern Wisdom
#878 - David Senra - 15 Harsh Truths From History’s Greatest Founders
Mon, 16 Dec 2024
David Senra is the host of Founders podcast and an investor. Every success story is like a unique song, composed with different instruments. Yet, when you listen closely, many of them share the same underlying rhythms. So, what are the core principles that play a key role in the lessons of the most successful individuals from history? Expect to learn why excellence is defined by the capacity to take & manage pain, why having high powered relationships is the secret to running the world, if self-pity has any utility, the reason that bad boys move in silence, why the story of the father is embedded in the story of the son and much more… Sponsors: See discounts for all the products I use and recommend: https://chriswillx.com/deals Get the best bloodwork analysis in America and bypass Function’s 400,000-person waitlist at https://functionhealth.com/modernwisdom Take advantage of NetSuite's special financing offer at https://netsuite.com/MODERN Get 5 Free Travel Packs, Free Liquid Vitamin D, and more from AG1 at https://drinkag1.com/modernwisdom Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period from Shopify at https://shopify.com/modernwisdom Extra Stuff: Get my free reading list of 100 books to read before you die: https://chriswillx.com/books Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic: https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom Episodes You Might Enjoy: #577 - David Goggins - This Is How To Master Your Life: https://tinyurl.com/43hv6y59 #712 - Dr Jordan Peterson - How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs: https://tinyurl.com/2rtz7avf #700 - Dr Andrew Huberman - The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain: https://tinyurl.com/3ccn5vkp - Get In Touch: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are the core principles of successful individuals?
Did you hear me say when I was asked, who is the podcaster's podcaster? The underground one that all of us listen to. It's you. Yes.
I almost clipped it and then posted it. I appreciate it. I watch all your Q&As. I love them.
Thank you. Yeah, dude.
I would love a weekly Q&A from you.
God, I don't know if the internet's ready for that. There'll be a new one coming up soon. Anyway, today I want to go through a bunch of lessons. You spend your entire time studying history's greatest founders, greatest leaders, thinkers, and I want you to go through some broad buckets of lessons that you've taken away from them. So we're going to do 15 today. Okay. First one.
Excellence is the capacity to take pain. Persevering through pain is mandatory.
Why? Why? That is probably my all-time favorite maxim from studying all of these history skills. It actually comes from the founder of Four Seasons, this guy named Izzy Sharp. And sometimes you're reading a book or you're listening to a podcast or sometimes it's even like a music lyric. One sentence can stay in your brain forever. I haven't read that book in probably five years.
And he's describing how difficult it was. Like he had no experience in the hotel industry when he found Four Seasons. And yet his goal was like, I'm going to make a collection of the greatest hotels in the world. And he didn't kind of disregard the fact that I've never made a hotel before. I don't have any money. I don't have resources. I don't have contacts.
So the whole book, the autobiography, which I think he wrote when he was close to 80 years old, is now him recounting this for the reader. And there's just so many times where he's just like he hit a like there's a problem he can't figure out how to solve, you know, problems with partners, with contractors, with financing. all kinds of like, you know, basically unresolved issues.
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Chapter 2: Why is excellence defined by the capacity to take pain?
And I was like, that's genius because for the vast majority of humanity, right, we don't have world-class biographies. mentors in person, but you can access their entire life learnings by picking up the biography. So a few years later, I started getting obsessed with podcasts. I was like, I remember that because as soon as he said that, I started reading a ton of biographies.
And then I got addicted to reading biographies. Oh, I should just make a podcast about the biographies I'm reading. And so it's funny you bring him up because I just read for the second time. I reread a lot of books. I think that's actually important. We can talk about that later if you want to. But I just read this book called Liftoff, Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days of SpaceX.
Elon is in a class of himself. There is not, in many cases, like a lot of the modern day founders, like there's a historical equivalent. There is like, you know, there is even a Steve Jobs before Steve Jobs. I've given up on finding another. There's no Elon Musk before, another Elon Musk before Elon. And the reason I love this book Liftoff so much is because it's the first six years of SpaceX.
That's it. Just like I said, I loved how Phil Knight just covered, get to the IPO is fine. This is even better because then you go back and what I do is when I'm reading books, I'll look up, how old are they when this is happening in their life? That book is about Elon Musk when he's 30 to 37.
Now, me and you think of Elon now, like world's most richest man, like unbelievably powerful, tipping elections, like doing all this crazy shit, right? It's like, no, no, he was 30 to 37. And it's insane. And 90% of the book is him failing. It is, they can't get the rocket into orbit. He's running out of money. He's going through a divorce. His infant son dies.
His girlfriend talks about in the book, him literally waking up in the middle of the night, screaming, not like, oh, how are you doing, honey? I can't sleep. No, no, screaming in pain and agony. And because he put, when he was the largest shareholder in PayPal, okay, this is what I also admire about him, his skin in the game.
When you already have multiple successful exits, you don't have to put your money on the line anymore. You can raise money from wherever you want. He's like, no, no, I want to be the largest shareholder. He made more money on PayPal than anybody else, right? Because he put in all his own money. Gets $180 million after taxes when they sell to eBay.
puts $100 million into doing a rocket company, who's never had no experience doing, $70 million into Tesla, where there hadn't been a successful American car company for like 80 years, and then puts $10 million into SolarCity, has to borrow money for rent. And so then this is talking about, he's like, you know, that book is the next few years.
He just sees all that money just essentially being lit on fire.
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Chapter 3: What does Jeff Bezos say about standards for excellence?
That line is in my favorite book on Buffett and Munger. It's called All I Want to Know is Where I'm Going to Die, So I'll Never Go There. And I thought it was them. So that's funny that you said it's his because I thought it was their quote.
Yeah, you've got like Mungarian grift. All right. You can always understand the son by the story of his father. The story of the father is embedded in the son. A desire to not end up like your father is a powerful source of extreme drive.
So again, that line comes from a Francis Ford Coppola biography. So the way I would say this is like, I think... I have a very broad definition of entrepreneur, right? Entrepreneur is like somebody who has ideas and does them. And so I think filmmakers are entrepreneurs. I think certain athletes are entrepreneurs. I think podcasters are entrepreneurs.
It's not like, it's literally somebody, you don't have a job, you have an idea, you have something you want to happen in the world and you build a company around it to be able to accomplish that. And, that I think it's like, I know if I'm correct, it's like, I was like 242, 243 books in, and I'm going through and reading all these biographies of filmmakers.
Cause I feel like making, creating, uh, I think directors and entrepreneurs, like there's just a lot of, uh, they have a lot of similarities. And, uh, That line, like you can always understand the father by the son, by the story of the father, the father, the story of the fathers, the better and the son was literally in that book.
And it's because Francis Ford Coppola, right, is talking about the relationship that he had with his dad. And. I have two kids and I have a daughter and a son. And I could never imagine talking to my son the way that Francis Ford Coppola's dad did. Francis Ford Coppola's dad was a musician, but he was a failed musician.
And what's going to happen if like you have something you want to do in your life and decade after decade, you're saying, I'm a talented musician. The world's saying, no, you're not. We're not interested in what you're offering, sir. You would become, most people, you know, I would consider the weaker people become bitter, right? And so it's not them. I'm not the problem.
It's the world that's the problem. No, it's always you. You have to have extreme ownership, you know? And so he would say stuff to his son, like Francis, when they were growing up, obviously not a lot of money. There can only be one genius in the family and that's me. So it can't be you. And like, he would try to like, basically, you know, pull his son down.
I want my son to like, I would not like, I want him to do whatever he wants. Yeah.
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