Succeeding in both life and business is very difficult. The skills needed to scale a company often clash with those required to cultivate a thriving home life. Yet, Brent Beshore seems to have cracked the code—or at least he’s actively working on it. In this conversation, he reveals his hard-earned secrets.
This episode is split into two parts: the first 45 minutes covers life and how to be a better person. Brent opens up about the evolution of his marriage, physical health, and inner life. The rest of the episode focuses on business. Shane and Beshore discuss private equity, how to hire (and when to fire) CEOs, incentives, why debt isn’t a good thing in an unpredictable world, stewardship versus ownership, why personality tests are so important for a functional organization, and more.
This episode will force you to look at every area of your life and ask, “Am I doing the best I can here?” And if not, the conversation will give you some practical strategies for doing something about that immediately.
Available now: YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Transcript
After beginning his career as an entrepreneur, Brent Beshore founded Permanent Equity in 2007, where he is currently the CEO.
Here are a few highlights from the episode:
If you’d asked me how my marriage was five years ago, I would’ve said, “Oh, I guess six or seven. We have our challenges, but we get along.” And compared to where it is today, I would say it was like a two. I just didn’t know.
If you gain awareness without healing, it’s way worse than not being aware.
There are really only two ways to live. You’re going to live out of fear, or you’re going to live out of genuine love and care for others, and love and care for yourself.
Money makes you more of what you already are.
You create higher returns long term by treating people well. You create higher returns over time by using little to no debt.
It’s not healthy to keep somebody in the role that they’re in because you don’t want to fire them.
The higher the price you pay for it, the more you’re pricing it to perfection, the more things have to go right. The lower the price, the more you can absorb things.
The only people who think buying a business and operating it are easy, most of them have never done it.
A big part of humility is just acknowledging that we’re far less in control than we really think we are. Also, when things do happen and you do see a need, talk about it; voice it; see how you can access people and resources.
Timestamps:
00:00 – Intro
00:54 – Why Brent examined his life
04:50 – How Brent “fixed” his relationships
15:10 – How helping hurts
27:19 – How Brent was subtly controlling relationships
35:42 – Why Brent stopped drinking (mostly)
45:35 – How to run a business with love yet competitively
55:40 – Win-win relationships
01:00:40 – On debt
01:14:34 – On incentives
01:24:14 – How to hire and fire CEOs
01:29:24 – What most people miss about hiring
01:39:25 – Brent’s playbook for taking over a company
01:46:26 – On projections
01:50:58 – Revisiting investments
01:53:50 – How “hands-off” is Brent?
02:03:40 – Where people go wrong in private equity
02:09:13 – On success
