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Crippled CEO Blog #111:

I am successful because of my unfair advantages.

It’s true. And I admit it. 

Dr. Ali Abdaal, while reviewing the book, appropriately titled, “The Unfair Advantage”, put success into a formula that I immediately agreed with. 

Success = Fair Play x Unfair Advantages

So, he defines “fair play” as stuff any of us can theoretically do. Getting up early, working hard, investing all your free time into improving, and so on — that’s fair play. 

Unfair advantages are… exactly that. The founder of Snapchat, the youngest self made billionaire, came from a wealthy family. He had access to money and contacts that most people don’t have. Bill Gates, due to a bunch of factors, had nearly unlimited access to computers to learning programming on at a time when computer time was very difficult to get. He also had a really high IQ with a talent for that kind of work. These are all unfair advantages.

But these are kind of the obvious ones. What isn’t obvious is that we all possess unfair advantages. We just have to realize that we have them, and then we have to use them.

A lot of times, you might have an unfair advantage as part of something that you view as a weakness.

For instance — I’m now going to use the example that you were all 100% expecting me to use — I have curly hair. And because of my curly hair…

Just kidding. 

I have cerebral palsy.

And it tremendously sucks in a lot of ways. I have to use a wheelchair. I can’t cut up my own food. I need help bathing, dressing, and using the restroom. Fingering is challenging. Traveling is fraught with difficulties. I am probably going to die in 10 to 15 years. It’s not great. 

But being crippled also gives me some very legitimate unfair advantages. 

People are automatically nicer to me than they would be otherwise.

I am much more recognizable and easier to remember.

Strangers, especially women, are more likely to talk to me in public than a (much scarier) able-bodied man. 

Being disabled makes all of the other things I accomplish seem more impressive and noteworthy.

People, and therefore the media, find what I do more interesting.

Living four decades with CP has made me ridiculously patient and a pretty fantastic problem solver — though it’s done nothing for my humility. 

I save a lot of time and money not wearing shoes (which is immediately canceled out and replaced one thousandfold by everything else, but still). 

You have at least one unfair advantage that you can and should use, and there’s a good chance that it’s something you think is hurting you. Start ups with no money end up being more innovative and ingenious. English isn’t your first language? You’re a lot closer than most to being bilingual. Blind? You can use your incredible hearing and martial arts skills to fight crime. Wait, that’s Daredevil. Maybe don’t do that. But you get the idea. 

Life isn’t fair. Unfair things are going to happen to you all the time. It’s time you start being unfair back. 

(Your mom likes all of my unfair advantages. But you don’t even want to know about hers. She also gets a weekly text with a link to my latest blog every Sunday. And it’s from a new number! Send a text to 561-726-1567 with the word CRIP as the message to get a link to the blog as soon as it’s up.)

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Crippled CEO Blog #110: 

You are less important than you think.

Wait, that sounded terrible. This is supposed to be helpful.

Let’s try again.

You don’t have to worry about looking silly for taking a risk, for pursuing a dream, because people care about what you do less than you think.

Seriously. It’s science. 

It is a psychological phenomenon called the Spotlight Effect. 

We are the heroes of our own stories, so we assume that we must be a big deal in everybody else’s, also.

But we’re not. 

Mainly because they are doing the exact same thing.

And even when we logically realize that other people don’t think about us as much as we think about ourselves, because of another psychological phenomenon known as anchoring, we still overestimate our impact. 

A study was done where they had participants wear “embarrassing“ T-shirts to a restaurant. They then had the participants guess how many people noticed the shirts. Even though the participants tried to pick a conservative number, understanding what was going on, they STILL guessed too high. 

No one notices. Nobody cares.

Except me. I notice everything. But you don’t care what I think, anyways.

I really like watches. Add this phenomenon is well known in the watch community. People stress about which watch to wear, worried what people will think, but the truth is that nobody notices.

But it doesn’t just go for appearance. It’s true for everything. People also care less about your successes and your failures than you think.

They’re not up at night thinking about how your last endeavor flopped.

You could take this as kind of depressing — no one thinks about you. 

But, in reality, it’s liberating. It means you can do whatever you want and, as long as you’re not hurting anybody, nobody will think much of it. You can do what you want for you without worrying about other opinions. They don’t have any. 

You’re the only one judging you all the time, so why not do the thing that will make you happy and proud of yourself? Go ahead and please the only audience that’s paying attention. No one else cares, anyways. 

(You know who definitely doesn’t care what other people think? Your mom. Last night. She’s also smart enough to get a link to this blog every Sunday. Send a text to 484848 with the word CRIP as the message and you can, too.)

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Crippled CEO Blog #109:

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right.” – Henry Ford

I have been fortunate in my life and in business that I’ve I met a few people who are especially excellent at fixing things — computers, cars, machinery, plumbing, and so on — and I’ve had the opportunity to watch them execute their craft. 

What is interesting, is that often times these people will dive into fixing something they don’t know about, that they have never fixed before. Most of us would say, “I don’t know anything about fixing dish washers,” and seek out assistance, but these particular people don’t do that. They move forward anyways, confident they will be able to figure it out.

I have noticed a specific trait that all these people have. 

And it’s not necessarily just experience, skill, or some innate talent.

Because in those instances where they are fixing something they don’t know about, they are looking it up on Google and YouTube. They are learning how to do it in real time. We could totally do the same thing, but we don’t and they do. 

So, what’s the difference? 

They think of themselves as people who are good at fixing things. Either they’ve done it before and had some success, or someone previously told them they had this skill, or they just decided… but either way, it became part of their identity. 

They believe they can do it, and so then they do. And when they then succeed, this creates a feedback loop confirming this identity.

But the belief came first. 

And just as the belief made them able to do it, the only thing that stopped you was your belief that you couldn’t. 

Just the story you choose to tell yourself about who you are and what you can do. 

And what’s great is that you get to decide that. You can decide that you’re the kind of person who flies a plane or plays guitar or does capoeira. And then you can. And you should. 

Because whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.

(I can’t even tell you what your mom thinks she can do. Eesh. She’s also the type of person to get this blog served to her in a text message each week by sending a text to 484848 with the word CRIP as the message. She’s a smart lady.)

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Crippled CEO Blog #108:

You’re wrong about when success happens. 

It doesn’t happen when you’re running your business — or fixing the car, or making the sale, or writing the code, or cooking the food. 

It doesn’t happen during business hours when you are doing your job.

Because you do get better from the doing, but so does everybody else. Getting better by experience alone means you’re improving at the slowest possible rate.

It means you’re only learning from your mistakes.

It means you are relying on only your ideas and your perspective.

Real success comes from what you are learning when you are not executing your craft.

The things you learn from 8 PM to 10 PM make you twice as effective during your 9 to 5. 

In 2016, I got serious about reading the best books I could find on my craft, on growing and running a business.

I had read before when I had a specific task I wanted to accomplish — a specific skill that I needed. 

But in 2016, I just started reading to get better. And since then, I have consumed thousands and thousands of pages on a myriad of topics that I thought would make me better at what I do. 

And literally nobody is going to be surprised when I say that the result is a business that would barely even recognize itself from five years ago.

Now, maybe it is cooler to pretend that I just figured it out on my own with all of my original thoughts and ideas.

But that’s not true. I just read. And I listened to audiobooks. And I watch YouTube videos. When I’m not working, I’m working on working better. Not always, but a lot. 

Honestly, though, I don’t think it takes that much. I don’t think enough people do this at all, so if you’re doing even a little bit, you are beating 75% of your contemporaries.

This is the force multiplier. It’s the cheat. It’s the hack. It sounds basic and obvious because it is. It just takes something most people won’t give: time and consistency.

We live in a time where education is cheap and available. I don’t have an MBA, but I think the education I’ve gotten in the last several years is better — I have the results to prove it. And I’m in a whole lot less debt. 

(You know who’s always working on her craft? Your mom. Be like her and send a text to 484848 with the word CRIP as the message to get a link to the latest blog each week.)

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Crippled CEO Blog #107:

There’s an aspect of success that I don’t think gets talked about enough.

We hear a lot about intelligence, hard work, creativity, and determination.

You’ve heard me talk a lot about integrity and character. Doing the right thing is always the right thing.

But you know what is tremendously important that you practically never hear about?

Manners. 

Being polite. 

It sounds silly, doesn’t it? Anachronistic. Outdated. 

“Manners.” 

OK, boomer. 

But seriously. Manners. 

I’ve had vendors who provide quality products and objectively solid customer service whom I actively try to replace with other companies because they’re rude. 

I just don’t like them. They’re not nice.

I left the bank I’d been with for over 20 years for the same reason, and the bank I switched to was the flip side — my contact at BankUnited, Javier, is the most polite, most courteous, nicest to work with banker on the planet. His employer earned millions of dollars in new accounts exclusively because of how nice he is. 

The same goes for customers. I’ve fired otherwise good customers because they are jerks. I’ve kept around poor performers because they are really nice.

Employees, too. If you do great work, but you’re rude to the people around you, I don’t want you. I would much rather have the person who isn’t quite as productive, but makes the environment a lovelier place for everybody around her.

So, yeah. Politeness. Go figure. 

(Do you know who I always let be rude to me? Your mom. She gets a text from me every Sunday, as well, with a link to the latest blog. If you text the number 484848 with the word CRIP as the message, you can, too.)

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Crippled CEO Blog #106:

“Fail early, fail often.“

This is a frequently repeated mantra in the world of entrepreneurship and management.

You hear it often as a vote in favor of a risky venture or a new idea.

It sounds forward thinking and innovative.

It also gives you something to lean back on when you do, in fact, fail.

It was all part of the plan! Fail early, fail often. Mission accomplished.

I understand the rationale behind this idea. We can’t be afraid of making mistakes. We need to be willing to try new things.

And we learn from failure.

And while failure does teach us what not to do, you can only learn what TO do from success. 

And when it comes to owning a business, failing early and often is fine if you are young, able-bodied, you have no employees, and don’t have a family depending on you.

If it’s just you that you’re hurting, then take those risks. If the result is you end up crashing on couches for a while, that isn’t the end of the world.

But someone like me can’t do that. Being disabled is expensive. If I fail at this business, I end up living in a nursing home. I will end up in a situation that is impossible for me to recover from.

There is a famous legend about Julius Caesar invading the Celts. He and his armies arrived by sea, and it became immediately apparent that they were outnumbered. His troops were scared, and many wanted to turn back.

“Burn the ships!” he ordered. 

His leaders and troops thought he was crazy. If they burned the ships, in the very real possibility that they were defeated, how would they retreat?

They couldn’t.

And that was the point. With their ships on fire, they knew they HAD to win. Their enemies knew they had to win. And with no other choice but victory available, that is exactly what they did.

My ships are also burned. There is no recovery for me if I fail. I run my businesses knowing that I I have no choice but to succeed.

So, with that in mind, how do we take risks? How do we try new things? As we know, the only person who doesn’t make mistakes is the person not accomplishing anything. But with the boats on fire, what do we do? 

Fail small. Instead of failing early and often, I prefer “fail small“.

Take risks with large upsides and minimal downsides.

Try new things in the smallest possible way first, see if there’s success, iterate on that success, grow it a bit, try it again, and so on.

You can survive failing small. You can lose the battle and still win the war. I have projects that started tiny that are now multi-million dollar revenue streams. 

I have other ones that bombed, but we started small, so it’s fine.

And I have a few in the fire right now that will either be amazing or dissolve into nothing, but I haven’t thrown all of my eggs into those baskets, so if they fail, it’s not going to affect my life.

“Fail early, fail often“ is a good example of advice that’s great for some people, but not everybody. We like to think of these quotable heuristics as being ubiquitously beneficial, but the truth is, like most things… it depends. 

(Do you know who never fails me early, nor often? Your mom, that’s who. She also loves getting a text from me each week with a link to the latest blog. If you send a text to the number 484848 with the word CRIP as the message, you, too, can be so lucky.)

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Crippled CEO Blog #105:

If you own a business or you’re in sales, you probably have a dream customer.

If you are a real estate agent, you probably would love a serial real estate investor.

If you sell shoes, a shoe collector aficionado might be your ideal prospect.

If you’re a yoga instructor, you probably live meeting health-conscious stay at home moms with nannies and disposable income.

I have a secret to getting these clients without having to pitch then the standard way.

Interview them.

Let them tell you about their passion for that thing you do.

 And then publish it on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, with the audio on all of the podcast platforms, and post the transcripts as blogs. 

Not only is the entire thing great marketing for you, but you have almost certainly earned that customer for life.

The person you interview is going to share it with all their friends — you just made them look important. And because people like us do things like this, as we know from Seth Godin, customers similar to the people you interview will start seeking you out.

It is a win-win for everybody, and a whole lot more enjoyable than going to a Chamber of Commerce meeting.

(Do you know who always wants to interview me? Your mom, of course. She also gets a text each week for me with a link to the latest blog post. You can, as well. Send a text to the number 484848 with the word CRIP as the message.)

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Crippled CEO Blog #104:

Two days ago was the 10 year anniversary of my mom passing away.

It definitely doesn’t seem like 10 years.

It also, simultaneously, feels like an entire lifetime.

In a lot of ways, I am not the same person she last had a conversation with. And it’s easy to think that the person I am now is the true, finished version, but I’ve lived long enough to realize that I will be somebody else, with different hobbies, beliefs, and obsessions, 10 years from now (I’ll actually probably be dead, like my mom, in 10 years, but that’s besides the point). 

But there are a lot of things that are still the same as the son she knew, and I’m grateful for those as well.

But that’s not what this post is about today.

My mom loved blackjack. She loves the game, but more importantly, she loved socializing with the people at the table.

And my dad also liked blackjack. I was taught the rules and the nuances of correct play from a very early age, and on cruises, we would often take part in blackjack tournaments where all three of us would end up placing. 

I also love poker, Texas Hold ‘Em specifically.

So, in honor of my amazing mother, I wanted to relay a lesson that she taught me through blackjack and poker.

You cannot base the quality of your decisions on the quality of the outcome.

In chess, if you play all of the very best moves, you will win.

In chess, you have all of the information available on those 64 squares. There is nothing random. There’s no luck. The quality of your decisions directly leads to the quality of the outcome.

But life isn’t like chess.

Life has lots of unknown variables and randomness.

Like poker and blackjack. 

In both those games, you can play perfectly, you can make every correct decision, and still lose. And likewise, you can also do everything wrong and still win.

It is easy to learn the wrong lessons from this. You can justify your terrible play by pointing out the result. You can also decide that what you do doesn’t matter, because in the end, it might not. And you can pick up bad habits based on these individual anecdotes.

But this doesn’t work long-term. If you successfully drove through a red light once, and then got hit by a car driving through a greenlight, you shouldn’t start only driving through red lights. That’s a terrible idea. 

But just like people do this in blackjack and poker, which drove my mom insane, people do it in real life, as well. They look exclusively at the outcome, and decide their success or failure by that. 

In blackjack/poker, you can lose a lot of hands and still win the tournament. Life works the same way. Losing doesn’t have to mean failure. For me, failure comes from making bad decisions. If I lose every now and again, in cards, life, business, and so on, but my decisions were correct — I’m still winning. Eventually. 

Because, once again, doing the right thing really is always the right thing. 

(Do you know who makes me make lots of bad decisions? Your mom. She’s the worst. One correct decision that she makes, though, is subscribing to get this blog each week by sending a text to 484848 with the word CRIP as the message. You should try it, too.)

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Crippled CEO Blog #103:

I’ve been procrastinating writing this blog all day because I’ve been in a poopy mood. 

That seems to be a thing more and more often lately. 

But no worries. I’m fine. Everything is fine. 

IT’S FINE. 

So, what have I been doing instead? 

Speed chess and YouTube videos. Things I don’t really want to do, that don’t take a long time, because my plan is to start the blog.

But then I did that for hours. 

And while it might have been enjoyable otherwise, it wasn’t, because I knew that I was procrastinating. I forget where I first heard this term, but I’ve always called this phenomenon of not enjoying the thing you’re doing while you’re putting off what you SHOULD be doing “gray fun”. 

It’s feeling bad doing something that should feel good (which also describes my 20’s). 

The good thing about labeling this phenomenon is that you can identify it when it’s occurring and, usually (though clearly not for me today), you can then talk yourself into doing the thing you should be doing so you can then ACTUALLY enjoy this other thing you’re doing now. You just have to flip the order around. 

Before I had a name for it, it was harder to realize exactly what was happening.

And that’s the beauty of naming things. It makes them easier to spot and fix. My favorite allegedly ancient Chinese proverb: “The first step of wisdom is calling things by their correct name.”

Hopefully, this will help you, too. 

And now that the blog is done, maybe I can actually enjoy my next game of chess. 

(You know what I never procrastinate on doing? Reviewing my companies’ financial statements. Ha! Gotcha! But also your mom. Your mom, the lady who sent a text to 484848 with the word CRIP as the message and now receives a text from me every week with a link to the latest blog. What a gal.)

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Crippled CEO Blog #102:

I’m currently in Las Vegas (which is why this is coming a day late — my third ever late blog post!). 

It took a lot to get me here. 

Traveling for me is… a thing. Airlines destroy, damage, or lose my chair entirely on 8 out of 10 flights. The process of getting me on and off the plane is often embarrassing and degrading. The flight itself, because of the seats, my physiology, and my inability to adjust my position, is unbearably painful. The last time I flew was a same day trip to Ohio and back in 2019 to shoot a commercial with UFC Heavyweight champ Stipe Miocic. Two hours in, as I’m doing Lamaze style breathing techniques to try to get through the pain, I swore off flying forever — at least like that. 

But it’s not just the flight. Once arriving, you need transportation. Wheelchair accessible Uber isn’t a thing in most places. And accessible taxis are harder to find than a vaccinated person at a kava bar. You can rent a wheelchair accessible van, but it has to be done months out, and the price would make your eyes sweat. 

And then there’s the hotel. From getting in/out of bed to the restrooms, they’re really not equipped for me. 

I haven’t been on a non-business trip for over a decade. One, because I don’t like being away from work, but also because of all the difficulties above. 

I did this one because a) I had someone I really wanted to go with, b) there was an amazing UFC card that I wanted to attend, c) Vegas is the only city I know of that has hotels that have the kind of lift I use at home installed, and d) Vegas is also the only city I know of with a plethora of accessible taxis. The roster for the trip ended up changing, and reason a) ended up going away, but I’m stubborn, and the last 8 weeks have been a bit rough for me, so I decided I was pressing ahead regardless. 

The only problem you didn’t see solved in that list above was flying. Vegas might be accessible, but I still had to get there. 

And that, finally, actually brings me to the point of this. 

Thanks for hanging in there. 

You’ve heard me repeat ad nauseam that the people you allow into your life, the people closest to you, have an incalculable impact on who you are. Who you choose to talk to/be around regularly is literally the most important decision you make and we don’t take it seriously enough. 

You’ve also heard me repeat that doing the right thing is always the right thing, and I don’t just mean that from a moral point of view — I think doing the right thing is also the correct long term strategic move for having a happy, successful life. Doing the right thing also includes the other life principle that I’m obsessed with: always do what you say you will. This sounds easy and obvious, but it gets tough when something goes wrong. In both my personal life and in business, I’ve chosen to keep promises to people who have hurt me, mistreated me, or proactively sought to cheat or screw me. This is made even more difficult because people will advise you to do otherwise, to break your word, and part of you STRONGLY agrees with them (“They don’t deserve it!”). Keeping promises in these cases goes against our human nature. You have to make the decision ahead of time that this is a rule you follow, because if you do it on a case by case basis, you’ll falter. 

But what does any of this have to do with Vegas?

The people closest to you shape the person you become, but if you’re a person who has consistently done the right thing, the word spreads, and I’ve found that acquaintances you barely know can and will go above and beyond, bending over backwards in unbelievable ways, to do even more for you than some of your closest friends and family will. Being an exceptionally good human isn’t just altruism. 

The arrangements to fly me to Vegas, get my chair to Vegas, and a ton of other details were taken care of by someone I barely knew — Joseph. It took him dozens of hours of work to coordinate and he did it for free. When I asked him why, he said, “I know the kind of person you are, and you deserve it.”

Once I arrived, a guy I had only met once, Jim Walter, the manager of Stipe Miocic, called in a favor and got us a reservation for the very next evening at a restaurant booked out months. It took him multiple phone calls and a flurry of emails — some actual work. He barely knows me. I didn’t ask. I can’t benefit his life in any way. He just offered. Why? Same kind of reason. When we had worked together previously, I did the right thing in spots other people may not have, and I consistently did what I said I would. 

We live a long time, and the word about who you are spreads. Especially with how connected we all are now, you can’t fool people for long. And you can’t be a “good person” without making these decisions about who you are and how you act before the situation arises, because the “right” choice often isn’t the natural one. And if you’re striving to be “uncommon among uncommon people,” then most are going to think you’re crazy for sticking to your principles in the situations where it matters the most. But you should. Because it’s the right thing to do. 

(Your mom is the right thing to do. Send a text to 484848 with the word CRIP as the message to get a link to this blog every week.)

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