Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
Tue, 22 Apr 2025
In this episode, Scott Becker shares 25 personal and professional mantras.
Chapter 1: Who is Scott Becker and what are the 25 mantras about?
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion, and it's in preparation for a webinar we have coming up, 25 mantras, concepts, and business thoughts. Some of these are personal. Some of these are business. And bear with me as we walk through the 25 of these. I would love somebody to give me feedback on this discussion.
If you're the first one or two people to text me with feedback in this and suggestions for changes or edits, it's 773-766-5322. I will send you a 100-hour Amazon gift certificate. Thank you for listening. So the first concept, we talk about a business often.
Chapter 2: How do you decide to double down, stay the course, or abandon a business?
Whenever you're on the course of a business, if you have to choose to double down on that business if it's going well, stay the course if it's going fine, or abandon it if you shouldn't keep on pursuing it. And this abandoning something is a very hard choice sometimes because periodically you get positive feedback, you get dopamine fixes. And so you want to keep going with it.
But at the end of the day, when you realize there's not that much potential or it's going to be so hard to get to that potential, you got to make that decision to let it go. The easier decisions are when things are going well, to pour the coals to it and double down on it. I love that. Or it's going fine. You keep on doing it. You keep on moving along. It's doing fine. It's making some money.
It's not a loser, not a huge winner, but fine. You stay the course. The second concept we talk about is a business investment concept, and I love this as well, is save and protect yourself like a pessimist and invest like an optimist. So even though... You want to invest to win for the long run.
Chapter 3: What is the advice on saving and investing mindset?
You also have to save and put enough money away that you're safe regardless of what the long run brings. The third and fourth concepts are more along the lines of personal concepts versus particularly business concepts. One comes from Jerry Seinfeld, which is sort of this concept of Some meditation, some weights and moderate coffee that those three things get them through life.
More meditation, more weights and more coffee. I can only do so much espresso without driving everybody around me crazy and making myself insane. But the concept of working on some meditation practice, very hard for me. But the concept of staying in shape, very important to me. And I think that's right on. The fourth concept that goes with those concepts is a different concept.
Chapter 4: What personal habits does Scott recommend for life balance?
And as you age, you'll understand this better. But the concept is don't let the old man in. You've got to be very careful in life about slowing down too much. Because as you slow down, it's harder and harder to get your mojo going, to get moving in the right direction. And I don't want to overuse this to cause people stress, to push themselves too hard. But there is this fine line.
And if you slow down too much mentally or physically... It's very hard to recoup and get back at that speed you want to live at and work at. The fifth concept is really for all professionals or people building a business or doing whatever job they do, is when you first get into whatever you're doing, you have to get great at whatever you're doing.
So if you're a doctor, you've got to become a great doctor. If you're a lawyer, you've got to become a great lawyer. Same thing with accountants. Same thing with any kind of professional. Then at some point, you move from being great at that profession to to practicing leadership and practicing management and growth in that profession.
Chapter 5: Why is it important to be great at your profession before moving into leadership?
But the starting point is really understanding and being great at your profession or job. So those are the first five points. Now I'll move to six to 10. The sixth point is, really understand your business and the landscape that it's in, and then you're trying to always apply things in that context.
So if you're a lawyer and you're in a sector, you really want to understand the business sector you're in, then apply law in that context. And I think this goes for very many things, is really trying to understand the landscape that you work in and that you live in. The seventh concept is
Chapter 6: How should you understand your business landscape and prioritize spending?
that is the economy weakens, it's important that you prioritize your spending as to what you think is really critical, that you really keep your debt under control, that you understand your asset allocation and maintain your emergency funds. The eighth concept is a different one, again, a wife concept, a personal concept, that injuries are better than illness.
If you have an injury, you're gonna know somebody else who has a horrible illness So do your best not to whine or complain too much about the injury. I've had over the last year, a couple of eye surgeries, a couple of knee surgeries. And by God, I am fortunate that those are injuries versus horrible life threatening illnesses and be thankful for the injuries, not the illnesses.
I know it's a hard way to look at it. Ninth concept is whether you're hiring a lawyer, a painter, anybody you're working with, Always ask for an estimate before you start a project. Again, a life lesson learned over and over and over again. The 10th concept, and we talk about this all the time, That it's one thing to get wealthy or get successful.
Chapter 7: What is the perspective on injuries versus illness?
It's another thing once you climb that mountain to stay successful, it takes tremendous drive. Or to stay wealthy, it takes tremendous discipline. Never lose sight of those two concepts, both extremely important. Getting wealthy, climbing the mountain, God bless. But staying wealthy, not screwing it up, that takes tremendous discipline and willpower. And the same with so many things.
Let me, that's six to 10. Let me take a pause and give you 11 to 15. 11, and this goes to assets. Allocation of your assets is critical. What you have in equity, what you have in debt, what you have in cash. You know, if you've been investing for a long time, you doubtless have been through lots of swings.
My punch in the gut came a long time ago when everything in equities and the markets just got tanked. And of course, that caused me to do a ton of studying as to what allocation was right for me. Now, most financial advisors push people into more aggressive allocations. And my own take is you want to live with an allocation that you could live with and you don't have to live.
Chapter 8: What are key tips for staying wealthy and managing asset allocation?
You don't have to listen to anybody's take on, oh, my God, you have 80 percent of your assets in equity, 70 percent in equities. You have to have the amount of equities you need to keep up with inflation to grow. But at the same time, be able to assess risk so that if it goes down, if the equities are really struggling, you can live and not panic. So that's allocation is critical.
Twelfth concept is don't quit your job during a recession. Everybody at some point hates their job. If you're in a recession, hang on tight. The best thing you'd have during a recession is a paycheck. The next best thing is a business that generates money or lots of assets. But don't quit your job during a recession.
Third concept is every business meeting or meeting of any sort that you're involved in, show up earlier or right on time. And then another caveat is keep those meetings as short as possible. We're the biggest fan of that. The 14th concept, and I think this is true, 80% of success is showing up every day on time and doing what you're supposed to do.
The rest is bright drive and personal skills, but constantly showing up on time. 15th concept, In anything you do, constant and regular communication is everything. And you got to constantly focus on whether it's with clients, with people, with whatever you're doing, the more they know this is where we're at, this is where we're going, this is what we're trying to do, the better off you are.
Not to put a knock on President Trump, but his communication about these trade wars is awful. So it leaves a lot of us frantic and panicked. Similarly, if you're a leader of a company, a leader of anything, the more you communicate where you're going, how you're getting there, the better off you are. So those are concepts 11 to 15. Let me give you 16 to 20. 16 to 20.
There's this concept about how you do anything is how you do everything. And I think there's truth to this and there's not truth to that. I'm a believer that you got to figure out the few things in life that you want to be great at. And the other things that you do, you don't have to kill with 100% intensity.
There's almost nothing worse than the person who's great in business, who then you're playing some sport with and also has to kill you in the sport too. They can't help themselves. I think you have to pick and choose. Here's where you're going to be great. Here's where you're not going to be great.
Some things could be hobbies, some could be businesses, and really finding out what you do and what you love doing. The 17th concept, I think this is so right on. Life is a game. It's not only about winning. It's also about having fun while playing. You've got to enjoy what you're doing and view it that way. And if you don't, it gets very old very quickly and a real prescription for burnout.
18, marketing versus sales. I'm a big believer that marketing without a sales team or a sales effort is a huge waste of money. In the ideal world, these things work together. If I got to do one versus the other, we're building a product and building a sales team, then a marketing team. But marketing versus sales, two very distinct things. And I see many people, marketing is easy, sales is hard.
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