Welcome back to the game where today I will be talking about doing deals and doing deals with friends

and how to navigate that, whether that's partnerships, employees, customers, any kind of dealings

that you have. What I've learned that will hopefully benefit you. So I was talking with a friend

earlier today and he had made this kind of vouch for somebody that we knew and that I thought

was a scumbag. He sent over this thing that indicated that I was indeed correct. He was a

scumbag and he said something back which I found really funny. He said normally I'm a very good

judge of character. He said except for you know that know, that one. And I said, well, I too am correct, except for the times that I am not correct. It then precipitated a much longer conversation that I thought I would share with you because I think it's relevant, especially if you do business with vendors over an extended period of time or you're looking to interview, you know, for employees or roles within the business or you're looking to interview for employees

or roles within the business, or you're looking to get into like a partnership longer term

for business in general. So I'll share this little ism that I have, which is do deals with

friends as though they're enemies so that they stay friends. It's a pithy statement, but there's a lot

to unpack within it. And the first thing is, is that I have been screwed enough times that I assume that I know nothing.

And that fundamentally, if you can be fooled, then it's not that you have skill.

It's that you don't control all the variables, which means that someone can still fool you in the future.

And so the idea of like, well,

I bat 80%. It's like, well, the 20% can still destroy everything you gain from the 80. I operate from

basically trust no one, but hear me out. This isn't some like dark whatever video. That's not the

point here. If you operate with friends as though they are enemies, as though they are strangers,

then everything you have is upside. I think people are always surprised, you know, when they see

someone's quote true colors. But what it really is is that you get to see someone's true values

when there are stakes. And so I've talked about this concept of character traits

are not binary. It's not like, is he honest or is he not honest? It's how honest is he? Is he honest to

$100 and then after that he's a liar? Is he honest to $1,000 and then he's a liar? Is he honest to a

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