Here are more notes from the next week of Altitude DVDs (you need to get your hands on these):

1. Hiring people on emotional bases is VERY damaging. In fact, Eben says that if you like someone a lot when interviewing them… that’s your first red flag.

A lot of people will hire people because they’re like them… which is disastrous, especially for entrepreneurs. If you’re hiring another entrepreneurial type… you’re just asking for a) someone to go and make a competing business, and b) someone to not be around for long.

He also says that you shouldn’t hire someone because you want to help them (family, friends, someone in a bad situation, etc.) He says it’s hard - even for him to this day - but crucial.

His last mistake to avoid is only seeing the good in people. This is one mistake I know I’ve made in the past, but am avidly working on now. :)

2. He says to surround yourself with stars - star CUSTOMERS, star TEAM MEMBERS, star PARTNERS, and star MENTORS. This is a fantastic point on all accounts.

Tim Ferriss mentioned the customer part in Four Hour Workweek too, and it’s so super-important. It’s SO less stressful to deal with people that are, in my terms, “good at life”.

I had a copy client a while ago who told me he was going to do something small for me… I don’t even remember what it was, maybe return my questionnaire… but he didn’t. Anyway, I called him on it and told him that if he couldn’t keep his word, I didn’t want to work with him. Dude did a COMPLETE 180, and ended up giving me one of my best testimonials ever. And my life was much easier.

Even with yayFOOD… if I get serial complainers, or people who aren’t taking action… I promptly refund their money and peace them out of my site.

And when all’s said and done… I’m one of the happiest people I know.

3 . Finding stars isn’t always easy, because most of them lay low. Eben says most entrepreneurs will never meet a star… because stars only speak “star language” to people that they believe are stars themselves.

4. There’s A, B, and C players. A players are the ones who are the stars… C players are average at best. C players turn A + B players into C players, and are pure toxic. Even having just one C player on your team is insanely dangerous.

Stars, on the other hand… they multiply each other. Two stars together is the equivalent of 3 stars, and 3 are the equivalent of 6.

5. Stars see life differently than other people. They take responsibility for their actions. They have specific aspirations (i.e. they have concrete long term goals if you ask). They’re usually well connected with friends and family. They don’t need to be managed… just led.

Lastly, they’re not “flashy” people (which confirms what I read in Good To Great, about how the CEOs of all the “great” companies were simple people, didn’t like “fancy graphs”, etc.).

6. A great way to test people out is to ask them to take 5 minutes at the end of every day and ask them to report:

a) What they did and the results they got

b) Any problems or challenges they faced

c) Any questions they have

By reading these every day, you “put your finger on the pulse”. It’s harder with knowledge workers to get concrete results (versus assembly line workers, for example, where you can easily account for specific output).

Geeeez, I have tons more pages worth of notes. I’ll post-date the next half for a few days from now. The next part is on systems anyway, so this is a good time to break off.

I’ve got to say though - these points are huge, even if you don’t have a team. I started implementing them and found THREE stars this week. THREE!

One of them is so passionate about yayFOOD that she wanted to work for FREE.

I found another one on a bidding site. I put a project up where someone had to find 100 ultra-specific YouTube videos to put in my video database for yayFOOD. The process is actually quite grueling and obnoxious, and I’d been putting it off for a while. I asked for people to include 2 sample videos in their bid, and to consider how long it took when they made their delivery length claims. It took me like 20 minutes to find 2 that fit what I needed, which is why I had been putting it off. This person wrote to me with 10 or so different videos and said she’d deliver within 24 hours. And for $50! And she was LOOKING FORWARD TO IT. I asked her some “Star questions” and come to find out she’s not just “good at life” - she’s AMAZING at life!

The other one is one of the best writers on the Internet, period. And she gave me a week deadline for what she was going to do (a few reports, articles, blog entries), but said she’d probably get it done even sooner because she liked to get things out of the way right away. I totally get that, I’m the same way with my copy clients. It’s AWESOME to find someone who feels the same.

:) :) :)

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