#091 – Dana White & Meeting Preparation

Good morning everyone,

Hope you’re having a great week!

Let’s jump in.

read online on my website 

read time 3 minutes 

#091 at a Glance:

• Quote: Unspoken expectations.

• Podcast: Chris Williamson x Alain De Botton.

• Deep Dive: What impresses me most about Dana White.

• Hack: The 20+20 Rule of Meeting Preparation.

• Tweet: The power of self-education.

Quote I’ve been thinking about:

Podcast I listened to:

Modern Wisdom #898 - Alain De Botton

Alain De Botton is a philosopher, author, and founder of The School of Life.

This was a guest that Chris has been wanting to get on Modern Wisdom for a while now so as a long time fan of the show, it felt so great to watch him navigate this conversation with Alain so brilliantly.

Some of my favourite takeaways:

• People often get very impatient in their attempts to change things about themselves.

• Madness is the loss of the ability to adequately sequence one’s own thoughts.

• At what point does honesty run up against the limits of kindness?

• So often, we lose sight of the things we know but are no longer in our minds.

• Adult relationships are are litmus test of our emotional development.

• The people-pleasing tendencies of adults often arise out of the survival habits they developed as infants.

• The quickest way to become a genius is to pay more attention to your own neglected thoughts.

• The biggest business disasters usually consist of people making things that they themselves wouldn’t buy/use.

Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.

[Podcast Length: 1 hour 52 minutes]

Deep Dive:

What Impresses Me Most About Dana White 

Dana White will likely go down as one of the most effective and prolific entrepreneurs of our time.

Founder and CEO of the UFC, multi-millionaire, husband, proud father, motivator, health ambassador, and role model.

His career achievements, whilst incredibly impactful and extremely admirable, are not what impress me most about Dana.

What impresses me most is this: He has effectively structured the UFC by leading a team of incredibly competent individuals who manage all aspects of the business so that he has the mental clarity to contemplate the big picture whilst strategically inserting himself at the heart of the action when necessary.

What do I mean by this?

He almost entirely avoids the day-to-day in a way that grants him the breathing space to craft the branding of the UFC from the eyes of the everyday consumer and showcase the events using the most desirable and exciting means possible.

I recently listened to Dana’s podcast with Mark Bouris and Chris Minns, recorded just days before UFC 312, and it really struck me as to the way that Dana has curated his time so that it allows him to completely avoid the the tireless work that goes into the coordination and production of a globally televised sporting event.

I mean, think about some of the businesspeople that you may know.

I’m going to take a guess that the scale and size of their operation is wildly less complex compared to that of the UFC, but they probably work harder than Dana White.

Why do we think that is?

This is where I truly believe Dana’s brilliance reveals itself: his ability to hire, delegate, and communicate.

He has created a brand that allows him to hire the best talent in the world (the fighters are also clearly world class but here I am speaking strictly about those who work in the front office as part of the business). The UFC is a brand that people want to be associated with, putting him in the position to hand-pick top-tier performers.

Not only has he recruited these all-star players on his team, but despite being the founder of the company, has relinquished complete control to them through effective delegation and structured the organisation to ensure maximal output and impact.

This has provided him with the opportunity to communicate and position the UFC as the premier living sporting event in the world, leaning on the success of the events themselves, the popularity of the fighters, and Dana’s own personal brand and influence.

Now, the obvious rebuttal to this line of thinking is, “Oh, that’s easy to say now that he has made all of his money, when he was more actively involved in the day-to-day he was probably doing everything himself.”

Sure – point taken and you’re probably right.

However, the business world is littered with tonnes of examples of founder CEO’s who struggle massively with not only letting go of the reigns, but structuring their organisations to maximal effect without losing the essence of the brand as they began to step away from the operations.

It is for this that I believe Dana deserves immense recognition.

There’s one more point I’d like to highlight, specifically in relation to how Dana has been able to accomplish this.

We’ve all heard people say things like “Elon Musk has the same 24 hours as you” or “Donald Trump only has 24-hours in a day”.

In my opinion, people often tend to misconstrue these messages, believing that these top operators are simply ‘doing more stuff’ than you or I are managing to do each day.

But it’s not that people like Elon, Trump, or Dana are DOING more; they are simply ACHIEVING more.

This is where I believe the power of LEVERAGE really comes to the surface.

For every unit of time that they invest in their work, there is an incredible multiplier applied in the process of generating the the final output.

Only part of this can be attributed to productivity. The rest comes down to leverage.

Their businesses have been constructed in a way that allows their decisions to be magnified through the compounded efforts of others.

The people in life who move faster aren’t actually running quicker, they’re just getting more from every step.

Hack I’ve been reflecting on:

The 20+20 Rule of Meeting Preparation

I absolutely love this idea from Alex Hormozi:

“People under-appreciate how much smarter you can appear if you simply prepare 20 minutes before a meeting. So much so that 20 minutes of preparation will more often than not add roughly 20 IQ points to the way you present yourself in that meeting.”

Don’t underestimate the power of preparation.

This is your sign to schedule 20 minutes of meeting prep before your next meeting (and every meeting after that).

Tweet I liked:

The Power of Self-Education

Thanks for reading! Grateful for your support.

Stay hungry, stay humble, stay curious. ⚡

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