177: Being Emotionally Detached is What Made Him Successful with David Henzel – 8FE

While most entrepreneurs are stuck in the hustle, David Henzel has built a portfolio of thriving companies that practically run without him, and he credits it all to one unexpected shift: choosing to lead with love, not fear.

David has a portfolio of startups, including LTVplus, TaskDrive, Shortlist.io, 50saas, and his passion project, Managing Happiness. He has also had multiple exits, including MaxCDN.

In this conversation, he opens up about automating himself out of daily operations, how he helps others define personal vision and values, and why empathy doesn’t always come naturally, but can be cultivated.

You’ll also hear how his rare neurological condition (aphantasia) affects his memory and emotions, and how he’s turned that into a leadership advantage.

From hiring practices to product development to AI’s role in modern teams, David shares a full-stack perspective on building aligned, purpose-driven companies.

Tune in now!

Inspiring Quotes

• “Money is a side effect of providing value.” – David Henzel
• “People work harder on things they choose themselves.” – David Henzel
• “Having clarity of mission, vision, and values helps me say no to things.” – David Henzel
• “I like to scratch my own itch. That’s how most of these companies started.” – David Henzel
• “A shitty framework is often better than no framework.” – David Henzel
• “I allow people to make mistakes because I trust them.” – David Henzel

• 00:00 Intro
• 01:23 David’s entrepreneurial journey and philosophy 
• 03:03 Alignment and personal development 
• 06:10 Delegation and trust in business 
• 10:31 Balancing passion and financial success 
• 12:03 Reflecting and adjusting in business 
• 18:40 The role of AI in software development 
• 20:38 Personal challenges and overcoming them 
• 28:53 Maintaining business life on the road 
• 34:34 Love Not Fear
• 38:44 Hiring and company culture 
• 49:58 Lessons learned from mistakes 
• 52:29 Advice for young entrepreneurs 
• 54:32 Outro

David Henzel 0:00
At some point, I realized that applying business principle to my personal life is absolutely magical, being able to really cut through the Bucha and not being held back by emotions. And now we have a framework for individuals where you run your life like a business. Because I believe if you have these maps in your life, it’s easier to make decisions out of love and not out of fear. Once your team scales above like 20 people. You really need that North Star. Like, hey, that’s the hill we want to conquer. Money is a side effect of providing value. Just like, figure out how you can provide massive value to lots of people, and money will follow. That’s the game. And if you want to win at the game, then

Brad Weimert 0:36
Congrats on getting beyond a million. What got you here won’t always get you there. This is a podcast for entrepreneurs who want to reach beyond their seven figure business and scale to eight, nine and even 10 figures. I’m Brad Weimer, and as the founder of easy pay direct I have had the privilege to work with more than 30,000 businesses, allowing me to see the data behind what some of the most successful companies on the planet are doing differently. Join me each week as I dig in with experts in sales, marketing, operations, technology and wealth building, and you’ll learn some of the specific tools, tactics and strategies that are working today in those multi million eight, nine and 10 figure businesses, life can get exciting beyond a million. David hezel, thank you for joining me from Turkey, my friend. Thank

David Henzel 1:19
you for having Brett always fun chatting with you. Little background.

Brad Weimert 1:23
You founded and sold Mac, CDN in 2016 and then you went on to do a whole bunch of other fucking companies. And you have like this, host of multi, seven figure companies that range from SAS to e com to all these different verticals. Up coach, LTV, plus task drive, shortlist.io, I want to talk about history and a bunch of these different companies and your unique skill sets. But the first question is, most people that, if you look at like the most successful billionaires, the vast majority of them went really deep into a company. Why do you have such a wide range of businesses. Why are you such a spaz?

David Henzel 2:02
Yeah, that’s, I think I would probably be financially much better off if I would have the ability to really focus on one thing. But it’s, it’s not really in my nature. I like to. I’m really good at starting things, getting momentum, and then managing myself out of it. You know, this is, this is, this is why I ended up with with so many companies that I like to scratch my own niche. For example, up coach. I built because I couldn’t find the software that was helping me with cohort based coaching. And so I asked my the CTO of another company of mine, like, Hey, can you build me something? And one thing led to other another, and then I showed it to Todd, Todd Herman, and he’s like, Oh, dudes, this solves 80% of our business problems. Can I invest be your business partner this? And this is how another one was created, you know? And I’m doing working really hard to only focus on love, not fear, or, like, actually shoehorning all my enterprises under love, not fear. So it’s always in line with that. But yeah, it’s, it’s a struggle. Before

Brad Weimert 3:03
we started, you were talking about just the importance of alignment right now, and everything you’re doing being aligned with love, not fear. That is a that’s like, a huge theme in my life, is trying to make sure that things are all working together. And I hate the idea of balance, because I hate the idea of, sort of, I think of that like I’m leaving one area to do another, and then toggling back and forth toggle one. Yeah, it is in I have felt that way throughout my life in so many different areas where, like, I want to go do an adventure, but then I’m out doing an adventure, like a physical adventure, and then I’m like, Shit, I need to get back to the business. And then I’m in the business, and I’m like, I need to go do an adventure. And so figuring out that alignment is has been significant. Do you feel like there is alignment through the different industries and verticals of the companies that you

David Henzel 3:53
have? I’m getting better at it to you know, it’s at some point I realized that applying business principle to my personal life is absolutely magical. By defining roles and responsibilities with my wife, took away 80% of the fiction we had in our relationship. And I thought, wow, if this works so well, maybe we take other stuff, like having family core values, having ambition and vision, having regular meetings, shared calendars, and all that stuff, all the stuff we do in business, in our private lives, and then I started applying this to my personal life. So I have a vision and mission for myself, mind, body, spirit. Body, spirit, a vision and mission for my family, how I want to show up their family and community, and then for me as the entrepreneur or my professional life. And this really helped me to to focus and say no to things and like not giving into FOMO and shiny object syndrome and all that stuff, because I feel it’s one of the biggest issues that we have these days. Because, you know, a few 100 years ago, I would have been born in some village, and I would have been a farmer or blacksmith, and then, of course, because my father was a blacksmith, you know, and then there were like, three women my age, and I would have married one of them, and that’s that, that’s that. But today, there’s like, I’m. Them in the possibilities. And I think we’re not made for handling so much complexity. And so the world became Uber complex, and having this clarity of mission, vision and values helps me to say no to things, and by saying no to certain things, saying yes to others, yeah,

Brad Weimert 5:19
I think that I very much am a believer that a shitty framework is often better than no framework. And to that end, I actually think religion is one of the worst things on the planet. But I also think I think religion has caused more damage than almost anything else on the planet, for sure. Also I think that it serves as a moral framework for people to live by, and it’s a very helpful mechanism. But again, a shitty framework is better than no framework.

David Henzel 5:52
I think it’s the framework is not the shitty part. It’s like that people using it for their own advantage. It makes it shitty, you know. So it’s not, it’s not, you know, not, not the gun is a problem, but the person who shoots the gun at somebody else, at somebody else, yeah, I mean, so I think this is more, how is he that? That the big problem

Brad Weimert 6:10
with that? Well, so you have all these companies, and I correct me if I’m wrong, but Well, actually, you don’t have to, because I hang out with you all the time, and I feel like you don’t do shit ever. So that leads me to believe that the companies are actually running on their own to great extent. When do you how do you get yourself out of the business in more, more specifically, what is sort of the dollar amount or structure like, what does the company look like when you feel like, hey, I can pull myself out of this. I like to be involved

David Henzel 6:38
in the starting process by kind of setting up the vision of the company in the mission. And kind of like all the and kind of like all the SOPs, and kind of like making the the thing work. And I love Dan, Dan Martel sting, where you kind of take your task list, and you look at the task and you write like, this is give me energy, take energy from me. And this is a $10 an hour, $100 an hour, 1000 hour, $10,000 an hour task, and as soon as possible, I remove the lower cost tasks, and just like outsource it to people, we also hire, you know, I have a recruiting business and a BPO, so we hire a lot overseas. And, you know, finding great people that at reasonable prices,

Brad Weimert 7:18
this just always BPO for people, business process outsourcing.

David Henzel 7:22
We provide mainly managed customer support for for SaaS businesses, for e commerce businesses and for for tech businesses with like five, 500 plus people in this business. Yeah. So I think this is kind of like the the idea of, like managing myself self out of it always, as soon as the business can afford it, replace one function that I’m part of with with somebody that can cover that. Yeah, ideally, hiring people that are much better than me at this area, and letting them just just run wild and just be a sounding board or coach for them. Is

Brad Weimert 7:59
there, is there a point where you feel like, can you identify the the metrics or the structure that make you feel comfortable, where you can say, actually, I only need to work on this an hour a week, or I only need to check in with the key players. What has to be present for you to feel like the business is going to run and grow without you? I

David Henzel 8:19
mean, profitability is like, you know, an easy one, you know, if it, if it’s growing and throwing off cash and but actually, I have a pretty high tolerance of trusting people and delegating and, like, you know, allowing people to make mistakes, because, also reasons why I have so many businesses I like to make people are, like, financially independent and kind of, like, building them, a business. And, you know, for example, I just launched a snack brand in Germany with my brother in law’s kids, you know, give them some money, and I mentored them along the way of doing this. So it’s not only, you know, not like in it for the Benjamins, like, you know, kind of doing it money is a side effect of providing value. And so, yeah, if this makes sense, you know, I’m not like, super being counting this has to make crazy amounts of money, you know, that’s it’s also what I enjoy doing, to some degree. Was

Brad Weimert 9:13
it always that way? I mean, it’s easy to say when you have a bunch

David Henzel 9:17
of money, yes, no, no. I was like, definitely super hustle in the with my Ecom Business, with my support business in Germany, and then with Maxie and I was like, super, grand, super hustle, and my wife went through breast cancer. Knock on, Bucha student, good. But this was a big wake up moment where I envisioned myself on my deathbed, looking back at my life, thinking, Did I really do what I was supposed to do? That the impact that I want to have, and it’ll be before I was just like, I mean, just chasing Benjamins. But this I realized, like, what really matters to me, you know, and I want to have impact, and I want to kind of, I guess, leave a mark in the world. And so this is definitely what. When this changed, and also your point, I guess Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, once the bottom pieces are filled, it’s easier to go for self actualization and do things that you’re actually passionate about makes it much makes it much easier. I’m not sure if I would have the balls to the stuff that I’m doing right now with if I’m not not having financial security, but I still would not do things that are against my values. You know, I’d rather be struggling a little bit versus, like, doing things against my values.

Brad Weimert 10:31
For new entrepreneurs that are, let’s say, you know, for a 25 year old entrepreneur getting started, do you think they should focus on being financially focused, or trying to find this passionate thing that pulls them ideally,

David Henzel 10:50
finding a middle ground, something that you actually care about, something that you’re passionate about, because, like, it’s going to be tough. You know, building a business is really tough, and if your only motivation is money and you don’t like, like what you’re doing, I think it’s going to be really hard when you have to hit the rough patches to get through them. So ideally, finding something that you actually like as well makes it much easier. And there’s this Jim Carrey gave a great commencement speech where he said he his father became an accountant because it’s a safe and secure job, and then he actually got fired and got laid off. And then it really financially struggled, even though the father would have wanted to become an actor or comedian, and his message was he can also fail at something you do not like doing. And there’s so many ways of making money. Ideally, pick something that you’re you’re passionate about, you’re way more likely to succeed if you have a passion for the thing that you’re doing, and doesn’t have to be like, oh, you know, I love everything that I’m doing. It’s in business, you know, if you, if you hit 8020 that’s 80% of the stuff you’re doing, you like, and 20% sucks, and you just kind of grab through it. That’s, that’s totally cool. That’s, that’s quite amazing. If you can hit that, you know, it’s not saying that everything has to be sunshine and roses. For

Brad Weimert 12:03
me, one of the things that I struggle with is carving out the time to actively review, reflect and adjust. I’m sort of racing towards the v1 all the time. I like to refer to myself as a recovering perfectionist, and that pattern is to really not get the first version out, because you’re waiting for it to be perfect. And so I’ve really aggressively shifted the pattern to get the first thing out and then move on. And very often I don’t go back to the second version. But if you don’t spend time reflecting and seeing what’s actually working what’s not, you don’t see that the first version needs to be adjusted. And I kind of had these things in my head, because I’ve got so much going on that I want to do the new thing. And I think that’s problematic. But that becomes very clear when you start to rip it apart and say, Oh no, we need to pull it apart again and do the next version here.

David Henzel 12:58
Yeah, I like having business partners. Who are, you know, balancing me with my house, you know, I guess there’s this book called Rocket fuel by the EOS guys, which talks about the dynamics between a visionary and an implementer. Visionary has like, 10 ideas in a day and or an hour, and the the CEO or the implementer ideally tells the visionary like, Hey, man, that’s cool, but let’s finish this thing first before we jump to the new one, because otherwise you will not get anywhere. And on your notion with the perfectionism, I think it’s really important as an entrepreneur, when you start out that you just like, launch stuff fast, and if you’re not embarrassed about the first thing you’re shipping, then you’ve waited too long because you want to have customer contact. Customer Contact. You want to get real feedback, and, you know, kind of develop an agile way where you can, you know, incorporate the real customer feedback, versus kind of tinkering for a few years and then launching and then, like, nobody likes

Brad Weimert 13:54
it. Well, the flip side of that, though, is you look at an apple, right? And when Apple Watches, it works almost always. Now, New Age apples a little different. They fucked a few things up recently, but certainly in the Steve Jobs era, something launches and it works and they what I like to tell my team is v1 doesn’t mean a shitty version of the final product. It means a very good version, but that’s very scaled down. And the example I like to use is the first iPhone that came out didn’t have copy and paste, like what, but it was a very solid product that everybody could see the future through. How do you reconcile those two things?

David Henzel 14:39
Just as you said it like, scale it down and build, like, a good first version that is usable and where you can get input from customers, and then, like, iterate in a fast way at at up coach, we implemented something before we had, like, the classic Head of Product figures out what we built. You know, designs it with the designer. Then we tell developer A, you build this feature, developer B, you do this, etc. Then they go into the dark rooms, code something, and then marketing announce it, and then customer support deals with the issues. And then at some point, maybe the developer hears from it. You know what to change. It was good, it was bad. So it was like super silo and disconnected. And so when we change this, we ask everybody to do customer support, even though they rebelled in the beginning was like, Hey, I’m a developer. Why should I do customer support? But I’m like, Hey, we really want you to understand the pain points of the customer and how our product really works. And then our head of product only did rough sketches or rough drafts or descriptions of, like, what feature could be built, and we create a pool of like, 2030, features, and then the developer can pick the features that they want to build. And before they did budgeting, so we said, like, Okay, you’re gonna need, like, three weeks for this. But now we know estimations. But now we did budgets, we said, like, categories of small, medium and large features. Small feature has to be built in a week, medium two weeks, et cetera. And then they just have to make faster decisions and scale it down and deliver something in this timeframe. And then here, I think this is where the kicker is. We ask the developer to announce it in our user community, so you know, developer can say, like, Hey guys, I built this and showed off, and then get the praise for it and kind of really being seen for, for what they have created. And, you know, before they were just like a small wheel in the machine, but now they really see the impact that they’re having. And this led us to 300% more output in on on the dev team, you know, because people work on the things they want to work on, they are autonomous. They can make their own decisions, and they get the praise or the direct feedback. Oh, why didn’t you do it that way? You know? And then, like, it’s, it’s more a connection with the customer and the product, you know, versus, like, being shielded behind your your wall and you know. And if you have to walk out and present something. You put more tender love and care into it, versus like, if you know, I build something like, yeah, practical, go present that thing.

Brad Weimert 17:07
It seems like all of those things need to be present for that system to work right. If they don’t have exposure to the customer, the right things probably aren’t going to end up on that board of possible features, right? And if they don’t have to present it, and if you don’t give the feedback, you’re not going to get the quality product out, and you’re not going to incentivize appropriately. So I was trying to, like, as you were talking about that, and you said 300% more output. I was thinking, huh, yeah, well, of course, right. But I was thinking, which specific lever was it that actually did that? I

David Henzel 17:39
think one thing is, like, the budgeting, so they have to make faster decisions. You know, they also have to know the product really well. It’s a combination of all these things. But I think in general, if people can, you know, they’re not like a small wheel in the machine. It’s like, Hey, Brad, take this thing and carry it from here to there, and then when you don’t come back to me, nobody wants to do stuff like this, you know, you want to kind of bring in all your talents, you know, and all your, you know, your mental faculties versus, you know, just being the small wheel in the machine. I think this, I think this thing makes, makes a huge impact of people being more excited and bought into what they’re building, you know, because it’s at the end of day, it’s their idea. It’s their how they create something, versus just being like a little lemming in the machine. And that comes, it comes, comes in again, like, you know, trusting people to make mistakes, allowing people to make mistakes, and kind of, like, you know, having this abundance versus scarcity mindset of like, hey, is this? It’s gonna work out, you know, good stuff, stuff would happen.

Brad Weimert 18:40
Okay, let me. Let me jump to current, current time. It’s May 6, 2025 while we’re recording right now, we’re, you know, on the initial up curve of the infancy of AI. But one of the things that it’s gotten very good at very quickly is code. Where does AI fit into your so you’ve had a bunch of you have a development team you’ve built a bunch of software products with. How much of the code that’s written today is AI and how has it changed? How you’ve run the software companies?

David Henzel 19:12
Output definitely went up. You know, before you always had, like, the 10x developer somebody’s, like, much faster than others. And the team actually shrunk a little bit and but we have more output. It’s quite fascinating. What’s what’s possible. And I’ve personally been playing with replit and, like, lovable, like, all these tools out there, and it’s, it’s really mind blowing, what’s coming. It’s not really fully there yet. I think can have, like, really shippable products with this, but it’s quite crazy. What is possible these days with with AI?

Brad Weimert 19:44
Yeah, replit is for anybody that doesn’t know. Replit is a AI platform specifically for making code, but one of the unique things about it is that it will actually deploy the code for you. So AI tools in general are helpful if you are a developer, to write code. Code, but if you don’t know how to diagnose the code, debug it and or deploy it, like, if you don’t know how to actually take the code and put it somewhere to make it run software, to turn it into software, you can’t do anything. And replied actually facilitates that whole process for you, which is pretty cool.

David Henzel 20:15
Plus, you just talk to it, okay, build this and tell like, Hey, see if this works the way you want to like, Oh no, please change that. She’s like, it’s quite crazy. Where things are going. It

Brad Weimert 20:26
is. It’s the whole vibe coding era. So on a personal level, what is the worst part about being a robot? You’re

Unknown Speaker 20:34
talking about me being German.

Brad Weimert 20:38
I’m actually talking about you being dead inside. So there’s a label for this. So you have what’s it called? It’s called a Fantasia, a Fantasia. So explain a Fantasia for people, because I find this fascinating from an entrepreneur perspective, and I have on more than dozens of occasions, been critiqued for being a robot. So what is aphantasia? So

David Henzel 21:02
aphantasia is a condition that I found out that I have, like, four years ago, three four years ago, and it’s the inability to create mental images. So when I close my eyes and I think of an apple or my daughter’s face, I see nothing. Basically, in my head, it’s always black. And another side effect is I basically I can’t reproduce images in my head, but also can’t reproduce sounds, tastes, smells or emotions. So I can have them in the moment, but I cannot reproduce them, which also has side effect of S, D, A, M, which stands for severely deficient autobiographical memory, because memories are sounds, taste, smells, pictures and emotions. And so yeah, this leads to me being like, if this is the emotional spectrum, I kind of, like, exist here, you know, I’m never really depressed, so I’m never really, like, super happy. You know, I have, like, a lot less, I feel less, less emotions, I guess, which allows me to make very rational decisions.

Brad Weimert 21:56
That sounds delightful to me, and I’m pretty good at that too, without but I definitely have sound, sound, taste, feel, etc, that reproduce in my head all the time and often in fucking annoying loops that I couldn’t get rid of. What’s, what is the worst part about it? For you? What’s the downside to it? I think, like to me, the upside seems really clear, which is pragmatic, structured decision making. That is not, I

David Henzel 22:21
do not, I do not have the entrepreneurial rollercoaster, like, Yeah, fuck yeah. I just doesn’t exist. And I guess also in life, you know, it makes it much easier when, when our father passed away, when I was 12, it took me an afternoon to get over it. Like, I’ll just, like, almost nobody’s faults, nothing I can do. It is with this I can’t change it, and so I guess I’ve been super stoic, by by by design. And my brother, on the other hand, is, like, very emotional and very hyper visual, and he’s still suffering from from this, like, 30 days, 30 years plus, plus, plus later. So I think this is, like, definitely the benefits of being able to really cut through the bullshit and not being held back by, you know, he emotions. In that sense, I feel emotions, but it’s just like it’s, it’s never taken me, me over in the sense. Downside of this is, for example, in relationships, when my wife went through breast cancer and she had to go to radiotherapy. I didn’t go with her, because, like, in my logical mind, there’s like, no benefit of me being there, like, emotional support, like, I didn’t pretend compute. You know, I would have, like, cut off a finger or an arm if this would have helped her, like, without blinking. But I didn’t, didn’t, didn’t get that. And so she, she shared this with me a year or so ago, and it was, like, big aha moment, like, how tough this was for her. Also, after finding out that I have a Fantasia, he’s like, Oh, my God, so many things make sense. Now, you know, because I always knew I’m different somehow and but now it’s kind of things things make sense. So I think on the social level, it can be challenging or, like, I can’t feel empathy. I have logical empathy. I really care about people, and I like, help, help people. But if you tell me something horrible that happened to you, you know, before, I still, like, smile at you and think, like, oh, how can I help him? You know, versus like, not having like, the Oh, I’m so sorry. Like, I don’t, I didn’t have this now, I kind of fake it to some degree not to make people feel uncomfortable that I don’t care. So, yeah, I think this, this was definitely a deficit for my news. And

Brad Weimert 24:27
I want to ask about, kind of how you cultivate that, and I want you to tell me about that. But I also, I have to, I have to hit on the fact that you just said I kind of fake it. And I think that I think about that particular thing all the time, like, if I don’t have a, like, genuine feeling around something, but I know that it will serve me and serve other people. Sometimes it feels disingenuous to, like play the game, but I don’t know that it’s really faking it. I think it’s actually just being. Being aware that other people need things out of the situation too, and the pragmatic path to the outcome that’s going to make people happiest and create the best win is to do this thing even if I don’t like it. I

David Henzel 25:10
mean, it’s not that I don’t like it. It doesn’t didn’t come to me naturally, but I know that people will feel bad if I’m not doing it. You know, I had like, a business partner that was like pouring out his heart because he was struggling. It’s like 1015, years ago, and I listened to it like, hey, just like, do this and this and this and everything should be fine. And he’s like, Oh, you and your ivory tower is like, Dude, I just want to help, you know. But, like, he just wants to vent it kind of like, at this, this, this empathy, I guess,

Brad Weimert 25:35
so, I guess I was thinking about it through the lens of, like, efficiency. Like, there are lots of moments where, you know, I would imagine you can relate to this, where somebody is having an emotional challenge, and you’re like, yeah, yeah, but you can’t do anything about that right now. Yeah. Just, like,

David Henzel 25:50
move on. Yeah. It’s like, you can’t control, there’s nothing I can do about like, this. Like, it’s not an issue. Just keep, keep on moving.

Brad Weimert 25:55
And also, I have to do something right now, so I’m gonna go do this thing, because I can’t serve you in any capacity either. So like, okay, bye,

David Henzel 26:03
yeah, I do my best to, I guess, manage people in to some degree. So I help them to get to the outcome that they desire. You know, even though it takes longer.

Brad Weimert 26:16
So how do you cultivated that and cultivated the ability to be empathetic in some capacity, I

David Henzel 26:21
guess, like deeply caring about people and helping people to succeed. You know, kind of always being providing value to others. And I guess acting out of love, not fear, not thinking like, Oh my God, my time. You know, sometimes it still slips. For example, I listen to audiobooks on 2x speed. You’re like, because, I can. Can retain it fast, and if people speak slow, it’s horrible for me. I can’t get to the point, you know. But it’s, yeah, it’s, it’s definitely a little bit of a struggle. But I don’t you know it’s, I said it’s playing the game. You’re kind of really getting the outcome to what you want to get. For example, I did an A B test of, like, dressing up, wearing, you know, not tie, but like suit and dress shirt and stuff like this, and a more expensive watch. And just people react differently to you. It’s just, it’s, it’s kind of ridiculous and dumb, but that’s the game, you know. And this, people react different. And so I, why would I not use that, you know, every time with a traveler, hotel, any like, interactions with the waiters, you get much better service. And okay, I saw this pattern. Why would I not take advantage of that? You know, not none the mean way, but like, you know, that’s

Brad Weimert 27:33
I like that. I think that’s interesting. There are times when, but it’s sort of this notion of, there are times when those things frustrate me, right where I’m like, Yeah, I don’t fucking deal with this right now. I don’t right now. I don’t wanna play the stupid game, like just, you know, just give me the thing. But I’m frequently reminded of this Stephen Covey quote from seven Highly Effective People, yeah. And the quote is, with people, fast is slow, and slow is fast. It’s not, it’s not actually efficient to speed a human through something that’s having an emotional experience. Efficiency actually is slowing down and walking through it with them.

David Henzel 28:09
Yeah, we do lots of with with love and fear. We do personal and organizational development. And this is exactly the thing. Like, it’s okay to be slow, it’s okay to be messy. Like learning takes this, this, this process, to go through the motions and to give people a time to do that, you know, you can’t just, like, say, Okay, now do this, and this, this and this, and then hope that they will do this. This is just not how, how humans operate or, you know, and so that’s the game. And if you want to win at the game, even though it’s a little frustrating, you know, if you maybe it’s frustrating in the moment, but if you played long game and you are aware that if you really want to get the outcome that you want long game, then this is what takes

Brad Weimert 28:53
Yeah, and I think that the realization that I have come to through life is there’s No reason to be annoyed with the game, like, acknowledge the game for what it is, and if you don’t want to play it, find a different game or try to modify the rules. But you can’t just arbitrarily go into a basketball game and start throwing a football around. Like, yeah, doesn’t work. Inefficient, right? So you can, you have to work on trying to modify the rules or play within whatever structure it is, and slowly change it as you see fit. So one of the things that I find interesting about you is, with all these companies, you’re bouncing all over the place, I have a horrible time maintaining focus, structure, habits, productivity when I’m on the road. And some of that is that there’s just social stuff happening, but a big part of it’s just that the general structure and framework is broken, right? So all the routines and habits that I have at home, which is like, I know where the food is, I know where the gym is, I know where the coffee is, you know, sleeping conditions are, right? You know, all this stuff plays to efficiency for me. You told me. Earlier today that you’ve been home for one month this year so far, and we’re five months into the year. What do you do to maintain your business life when you’re on the road? I mean,

David Henzel 30:09
good thing is that I manage myself out of businesses. So, you know, the businesses run without me. I could technically go on the six month vacation, and technically everything should, should work without me. I’m just like, there to enhance stuff, aside from, like, some some cohorts that I’m that I’m coaching right now, but, yeah, I think it breaks down to two habits of, like, a few key habits that I want to maintain. You know, exercising is an important one for me to release stress and to be be on my A game eating right? Is definitely struggle. On the road like this is something especially with social occasions, and, you know, kind of I’m vegan, and I like to stay away from carbs to some degree. And like on the road, it’s like often, often impossible. So I end up eating pizza and pasta from time time. So this is definitely a struggle. But business wise, I guess I’m not that that involved in the businesses right now on the day to day basis, you know. And I can just, like, do a call with, like, being a sounding board for some of the operators, doesn’t take that much of my time, you know, kind of working on the business, not in, not in the business. And, yeah,

Brad Weimert 31:19
I guess that’s not helpful for all the entrepreneurs out there that are struggling. That are struggling with

Unknown Speaker 31:23
this issue. Sorry,

Brad Weimert 31:27
I will say, though, relative to the food thing, first, first off, vegans a little bit of a different thing, because it’s just sort of a bitch to navigate it in different places, like, can you find a protein source at all restaurants that is plant based. And the answer is, not always, other dietary considerations are easier on the road than vegan. But I was with, you know, Dan Martel is a friend of both of ours, and I snowboard with him every year. And this year, you know, in the last 18 months, he’s gotten on this crazy health kick where he’s just like, it looks like, yeah, look, and he’s, you know, most of that is, you know, there’s this adage that abs are made in the kitchen, not the gym, and that’s true, right? It’s really a dietary consideration. So he’s dialed in his, you know, macro functionally. But now he has a chef food prep, and he just travels with prepped meals, and it’s an extra bag or something, or maybe you have an assistant that you know runs around behind you with it. But certainly prepping is there. So like, I guess part of the reason that I wanted to hit on that is because you’ve automated yourself out of you’ve set up systems and structures and all these other areas for your businesses to run. What’s the barrier to that on the road?

David Henzel 32:46
I guess, caring. You know, I didn’t care, you know, I don’t care about it that much. You know, it’s not, not that important for me to have apps or whatever. You know, I like to exercise. I like to be fit. But, you know, it’s Yeah, together. With my wife since we’re 18. So I guess I don’t have the crazy desire to I will be out of shape. I guess it’s also how you do. One thing is, how do everything. But I’m not not obsessed in this regard.

Brad Weimert 33:15
I like the narrative of how you do one thing is, how you do everything. But again, it goes back to a framework, right? As a framework, I think it’s a very helpful lens to see the world. And you know, I also enjoy sharing unique meals and experiences with people, and so I trade that off from in my younger years, I was super militant about food, and now I trade that to sort of lean into new experiences with the people I’m with. Kind

David Henzel 33:43
of, what matters, what are your values? I in the love and fear self leadership. Course, we help people to figure out their personal mission, vision and values and goals and habits, kind of like, you know, like an operating system for your for your life. And somebody had, like, one of his number one core value was health. But he always like, you know, went to networking events late, you know, kind of drinking and eating out and blah. And, you know, we talked about this is like, Hey, this is like, actually, you say this is your number one value, but actually it’s not what you doing. Like, show me your calendar. Show me like your actions. That’s kind of what speaks for it, you know. Or like, it’s like, oh, family first, blah, blah. But I’m like, never home and I never see how it just work all the time. I kind of be be real and kind of like, see what you what you actually doing. Maybe it is not the real value that you’re living. Maybe it’s an aspirational value, but not how you, how you actually conducting your life.

Brad Weimert 34:34
Well, tell me so tell me about love, not fear. So you you kind of in the time that I’ve known you, which is a few years now, you sort of adjusted things and created this love, not fear brand, and leaned heavily into it, and now everything is getting pushed through this lens. You’re thinking about it all the time. You’re talking about it all the time. What is it like? First and foremost, what is that concept? That, what does love, not fear mean? And then second, what’s the business side of it behind

David Henzel 35:03
it? So as an entrepreneur in general, I used to be very introverted and shy, and somehow I became an entrepreneur because I was kind of lost. And a friend of mine said, like, Hey, man, you could put computers. How about we start a business? Like, yeah, sure, if nothing else going on. And this is how I found entrepreneurship. But I used to be super duper shy, so running a meeting with my own team. Was very uncomfortable. Being on a conference call with a customer was very hard. I was never gone on the podcast. And this was like, really holding me back in life in the business. And then I met, you know, Sayed Bucha.

Brad Weimert 35:33
Oh yeah, love him, dude. I just, I just randomly ran into him at the TED conference in Vancouver. Yes, yeah, he is, he is. He is, uh, He’s a gangster. He’s, like, a super impressive entrepreneur. Yeah,

David Henzel 35:44
he’s one of my best friends. And I met him when he was 19 in Vegas. He was keynote speaking at the conference, and back then, we sponsored him with Max. The answer was wearing, like, a max of the entrance, like, Hey, you’re the dude. And then he took me by the arm, and he introduced me to all the speakers and all the movies and shakers. And I was like, wow. Like, this is so good for business. And he has, like, you know, fun, fun doing this. You know, it’s like public speaking and just like networking like a crazy person. I thought, Damn, I want this too, but how do you do this, being an introverted nerd. And so I decided to do Toastmasters twice a week, which is public speaking classes, let’s say. And even though it’s, like, crazy painful. But I did it twice a week, and I went to two networking events per week in LA and I talked to everybody and their mother, even though it was like also super duper painful, but helped me to overcome my my shyness through exposure therapy. But then the real switch happened when my yoga teacher told me that every decision in life you either make out of love or out of fear. This was just like mind blowing to me, because I always operate out of fear. You know, when I being on stage speaking, I always thought about me thinking, Do they think what I’m saying is stupid? Do they think I look weird? Do they think I have a weird accent? Will I follow my face? Will I be embarrassed, whatever. But if I turned around, I think, Okay, what I’m sharing here on stage or like on this podcast, can potentially help somebody out there in their life. And that’d be life and their business, then, like, Yeah, sure. Sign me up. It’s no problem. I’m happy doing it because I do it with love or selling. I hated sales with a passion. Always sold out of fear, because we’re a startup, we have to sell or we gonna die. And I always felt like a used car salesman, you know, shoving something down somebody else’s throat that they don’t really need. But if I turn this around, and I do it out of love, if I know the product can be good for you, I can be super pushy. Say, like, Brad, come on, man freaking buy it’s gonna help you so much. And you’ll feel that this is coming from a place of love that I want to improve your life, and not just like, hit my numbers, pay my mortgage or buy myself in the Porsche. And so this was so transformational in my life to realize this, I guess it’s also a map, right? Or like a framework, you know, like acting out of love versus fear, or like having, you can also say, having an abundance or scarcity mindset, or trust or control in terms of your team. And yeah, this was so impactful for me, so I became really obsessed with spreading this, and because it was so impactful for my own life. And now we have a framework for individuals where you run your life like a business, defining vision, vision values goals and habits and all that jazz in your personal life. Because I believe if you have these maps in your life, it’s easy to make decisions out of love and not out of fear. And then in teams, we’re creating company cultures where people do their job out of love and not out of fear, you know, kind of like starting from how to hire people who are actually excited about doing the job and the fit for your culture, and not just a technical fit. Or, you know, fixing the inner people dynamics to create high performance teams that people play together well. And this is what we’re currently doing with love, not fear. Love it.

Brad Weimert 38:44
How do you find those people? So let’s talk hiring for a second, because you also have a whole host of people working in all the companies. What does that look like? What are the and you can do it through the lens of love, not fear. Or I’d like to go kind of a level into that and just say, what kind of questions do you ask when you’re trying to assess that and figure out who is going to be, what are the most important questions to ask in an interview to new employees? So

David Henzel 39:07
I think, I think it even starts with a job posting. So when doing a job posting, like to put in a video of the hiring manager, and the hiring manager should talk about, like, you know, what’s requested in, you know, in the work that you’re doing, how does the day to day look, and what’s the mission and vision of the company. Because, you know, I want you to, if you see a video of me, like, Hey, you’re gonna work with me on this and this, we’re gonna do XYZ. You can either say like, oh, yeah, I can see myself working with this guy. Like, oh, I want nothing to do with the city. You know, that’s not, not my vibe, right? So it’s kind of either drag the people in who are good fit or repel the ones who have a bad fit. And same thing with core values at max city, and we had a our number one value was built cool shit. Because we want to attract engineering nerds who want to build cool shit, but we also want to repel people who would be offended that the company used to watch shit in their core values, you know, want to come to work with suit and tie and they because they would not last in a culture a minute, because there. Just, you know, not a fit. And we don’t want to waste our time or their time, so we want to kind of drag the people in who are good fit and repel people who are not a good fit. Same with, you know, when I meet somebody, I just, like, talk about deep stuff, not about the weather. Because I either want to, like, drag this person in see, like, Hey, this is part of my tribe, or like, oh, this dude’s freaking crazy. I want nothing to do with them. So it’s just, like, kind of makes makes life easier. And so I think there’s like, like, a key element, and then really driving in mission vision values into people’s heads. And also one thing you can do is, like, kind of, if you find a way to make what you’re doing sexy in the vision statement that you have, because people these days, especially the young, younger generation, wants to do something that they’re excited about, being part of something bigger and having like this, this fulfillment piece as well. And always like to give the example from, do you know Liam Martin, from Time Doctor? No, so Liam has a company called time doctors. It’s a time tracking software, and if their vision statement would be to become the number one time tracking software in the world, he’d probably have like, three employees who are excited about this, because, like, who really cares about time tracking? Right? To be real, right? But their vision statement is to lead the remote work revolution. And, you know, they now have the biggest conference about remote work, called running remote. It just happened in Austin, actually, last week, I think, and they wrote a book about this. And, like, pretty big team, like a few 100 people, and, like, super with super gun whole about this, right? So, kind of, like, finding ways to make it sexy for people. And so by the way, curious, putting on the spotlight. What’s easy pay directs vision and mission. Do you have something to find?

Brad Weimert 41:43
Yeah, I mean, the our tagline is the fastest, safe way to accept payments, which is not sexy and plays to a significant issue that a huge part of our audience has. So normally, I interrupt the show to promote EPD to tell you about credit card processing, but today I’m going to tell you about our partner program. If you know other business owners that accept credit cards and you refer them to easy pay direct, you will get paid a percentage of what we make for the life of the account, as long as they’re processing. You can build a residual for doing nothing, just the introduction. You can do that by going to epd.com, forward, slash BAM partners, that’s epd.com, forward slash b, a, m partners. So it’s, it’s an interesting thing, because when you talk about that, one of the things that I, I think a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with, and I’ve talked about this quite a bit, but this narrative that you’re supposed to have a clearly defined vision and mission, and most of the time, entrepreneurs don’t know what they’re doing and kind of put some shit on the wall and point to it, and it really isn’t in the company at all. And there’s kind of trying to construct this thing for the sake of making money, really. And I generally operate from the place of Get the fucking thing off the ground and just drive. And then, as you do that, you can kind of figure out maybe what those things are. And I think the Time Doctor is probably that way. Also, I doubt that that was the initial mission,

David Henzel 43:14
absolutely not, yeah. But I really believe that if you want to actually kind of imagine yourself out of the company, if you really drill in mission vision values into people’s heads, then everybody can make decisions the same way you would make them. So in the onboarding we tell people about our core values, and we tell core value stories, how somebody really lived up to these values, so they can make decisions the same way that we would make them. Or another cool example is ring the doorbell company, you know, the founder, Jamie, from back in the early days. And I talked to his head of engineering. I was in Kiev that like, like, 500 people officer, and I talked to his head engineering about the power of vision and mission statements. And he said that they have this thing you put on the side of the house. It’s like a, you know, a flood light with a camera and a microphone. So if somebody walks in your yard, you can tell them, like, Hey, man, like, what are you doing here? Leave or call the police or shoot you, or whatever, you know. And one of his engineers came to him and said, like, Hey, man, I have an amazing idea. We’re going to build the party mode for this product. And he’s like, what it’s like when the party mode is on, because this thing has a microphone that lights, it’s gonna flash with the music, you know. And he said, like, he said, I had two options. Like, hey, I tell him, like, Dude, that’s a dumb idea. Go back to your desk, and then the guy would be just, you know, crushed, and, you know, not productive for a minute, and probably never will bring new ideas, even though maybe he has a good idea at some point. So instead, he said, like, that’s a fun idea, but what does this have to do with our vision statement, which is to reduce crime neighborhoods. And then you’re like, oh, yeah, right, you know. And then, like, if you give the reason for every management decision that you make with, like, tying it back to vision, mission and values, I think at some point you have a workforce that just, like, knows what, how we do things, why we do things. And, you know, just kind of. Yeah, you don’t have to micro match, because people really just, like, know why we’re here. What are we doing? You know, kind of like basketball, like, it’s like, we we’re here to win the Champions League or whatever. I’m not a sports guy, but you get the point right. Champions League is like, what’s Champions League? Soccer, right? Yeah, not basketball, but you get the point right to kind of, like, really aligning the team and creating this emergence, emerges coming from, from in an ant hill. There’s like, you know, there’s like, workers, there’s soldiers, and like, there’s a few different, you know, types of ants. And when they meet on their on their ant roads, they kind of like smell each other, and they know, like, what they are. And if, like, there’s not enough soldiers, then workers, just, like, turn to soldiers, without talking to, you know, to corporate, you know, just to kind of make their own decisions. And ideally, you get to a point where everybody on the team is so aligned they know which game we’re playing that they can make these decisions by themselves. So I think it’s really powerful. And I starting out. Now, when I start out, I kind of like, think about this, but, you know, back in the days, I was just like, you know, I thought, like, vision, vision values is some dumb shit. You put on a PowerPoint for an investor and then you bury it on the website and never look at it again. But over the years, I found that it’s actually an amazing tool to create alignment in the team and make people play together. Well, yeah,

Brad Weimert 46:20
I think, I mean, I think there are a couple of big takeaways. And the one, the starting point that you just reiterated, is, if you’re just getting going, don’t worry about all the bullshit. Just go create something and make sure you’re providing value to the target market. Test, see what they like, fix it, come back and keep iterating quickly when you were small. But inevitably, the reason that cliches exist is because a lot of people have that sentiment, right. And so this, you know, mission and value thing that has been that every entrepreneur is aware of that they’re supposed to have. The reason it exists is all the things that you just said. And I had a very similar I got introduced to this guy, Darius mercazade, who’s now a good friend of mine, but he wrote a book called The core value equation and and he got introduced from like, a couple people that I really liked, trusted, respected, close friends of mine. But I get it, and I get the book, and I’m like, fuck like, this is going to be some fluffy ass woo motherfucker that I don’t really want to know. And so we get on, we got on a call, and in the first probably, like 60 seconds or 90 seconds, he’s talking about core values and shit. And I’m like, Oh God,

Unknown Speaker 47:31
but yeah, exactly.

Brad Weimert 47:32
And then he, in an instant, he snaps, and he’s like, just to be clear, I thought this was all some fluffy bullshit. And then he went down the road that you just went down, which is the pragmatic approach to creating aligned vision and values for the company, and how it allows people to operate in the best interest of the company independently. And so I think it’s a I think that there’s a huge takeaway there for the people that are at the right stage, which is, how can you create a framework that allows people to understand how to make their own decisions that will be in the best interest of the company?

David Henzel 48:07
And we had that Max CDN. We had a clear vision and mission. In the beginning, back the CDN sets for content delivery network, making websites load faster. And when we started this in 2009 it was quite expensive, and you had to do, like annual contracts go to the big boys. And it was only a tool for the for the big companies, you know, because, like, small startups couldn’t afford this. And it was also quite complex to use. And our mission was to make it easy and accessible for everybody. It’s kind of like the the idea that we had, or our vision, but we never wrote it down. It was just like clear in the early team. It was just what we’re doing, you know, and also having the clear day, like, who are we doing this for, which was, like, you know, startups who can’t afford going to Akamai and getting, like, a big contract. And then we This worked really well, and we grew super fast, but we hired all these people, and we didn’t tell all these people what we’re about, what we’re doing, who we’re doing it for? And we hired this guy, amazing engineer. He was at Splunk before he became our CTO. It’s like some big data analytics platform. And, you know, because of his privacy, previous, previous experience, we thought like, oh, let’s build this big data thing on top of xdn, which was we took, like, a year and a half, you know, took way too long, and it was really cool, but only cool for 3% of our customers. Now, it was like, What is this? You know? So we kind of like, really went running into 10 different directions and not having this, this alignment, and we realized that this was because we didn’t communicate our vision, mission, values and who we doing this for, what’s our customer profile? And after having this realization, you know, we took off again. But it was like, you know, this, why I really felt the pain of not having this clarity and alignment, like where we’re going, I think, like, once you your team scales above like 20 people you, I think really need that North Star, like, Hey, this is what we’re doing, where we’re running towards this hills. That’s the hill that we want to conquer.

Brad Weimert 49:58
Yeah, I love that. Yeah. Um, okay, a couple quick questions before we wrap here. What’s a bad mistake that you made that ended up being a great lesson or something that you might have been from?

David Henzel 50:10
Actually, I have made this a few times like and kind of going back to like, how you do one things, how you do everything. It’s like partnering up with people who are have misaligned values. And you know, if he’s cheating on his wife, he’s also going to cheat on you without blinking an eye, you know, or if he had partner troubles before, he’s going to have going to be trouble again. At maxium, we had a business partner who started ending up having an affair with his wife’s best friend. And then they started, like, this crazy divorce battle. And you know, he ended up taking money from the company, and you know, we kicked them out. It was like, quite, quite crazy. And then we want to hire, you know, I guess we learned the lessons from this. And later, we want to hire a CTO after we had them out. And the CTO, he was like, perfect on paper. And we were like, like, Okay, deal done. We’re gonna hire you just come to LA and we want to hang out with him at Chris place for for a while, then kind of get all the paperwork done. And he comes to the house and he has this woman with him. He comes inside and he’s like, Oh, that’s my mistress, by the way. Mistress, by the way. And we’re like, Jesus Christ, we can’t do it. We can, we can, can’t work with you. And it was also a good thing, because he also went up in flames, because this, this same similar issue, you know? So,

Brad Weimert 51:36
yeah, I think I, I’m very aligned with that sentiment in that I think, I think people don’t recognize that their decision making in some in one area of their life bleeds into the rest of it. And I think that example is, is really good, which is, if you have a lack of integrity with yourself around your your partner, the relationship you have with your spouse, that lack of integrity is going to rear its head in other areas of your life. Or

David Henzel 52:07
if you, if you’re if you’re extremely overweight, have a substance abuse issue, etc, etc, you know, kind of it’s all like, if you don’t have the act together in one area of your life, it’s going to reflect on the other areas. It’s just, yeah, how you do one things? How do everything, like, even if you if your closet is in order or not, you know, it’s kind of like your desk is in order or not. You know, it’s always a reflection.

Brad Weimert 52:29
What advice do you have for a 25 year old entrepreneur starting out today? I

David Henzel 52:34
mean, the biggest lesson that I learned was, like acting out of love and not out of here, you know, kind of like not, not holding back. And what you all said, like, money is a side effect of providing value. Just like, figure out how you can provide massive value to lots of people, and money will follow. You know, if you find out how to provide crazy value to a lot of people, you probably be the richest person around. That’s the move. And find something that you’re passionate about, that you actually care about, because this gives you an unfair advantage if you really, like, you know, you know the field. For example, I, I just started, I had the CEO of task drive, um, Tim. He is such an AI nerd, and I really saw his passion. He like, knows everything, he reads everything, like, he just waits for every new release, and he just, it’s crazy how much he’s into AI. And I feel like, hey, it’s a waste of your talent in life that you run task drive. Let’s start new business that is only about AI. It’s called AI operator, and he’s crushing, you know, he was like, mediocre at task draft, but now he’s crushing. He, he, he signed Google, and he’s explaining Google teams how to use Gemini probably, you know, it’s just, it’s really wild. So yeah, definitely, like, find something that you’re passionate about, this gives you an unfair advantage. And also, like, if you’re not excited about the thing that we were doing, I don’t want to hire you, because you will not be an A player. And I want an A players. Want to play with a players. Because, you know, if we play basketball and you’re on your phone and we lose, because that’s, you know, like, it’s, yeah, you know, it’s people leave they want to be on the winning

Brad Weimert 54:11
team. David Hensel, where do you want to point people? Where should people find out

David Henzel 54:16
more about you? Um, check out lovenofe.com and if you want to connect with me on LinkedIn, always happy to nerd out about personal development, organization development, and if you tell me that you heard me on Brad’s podcast, and I’ll definitely connect with you, because I get love spam. Did I just love it,

Brad Weimert 54:32
man. Thank you so much for the time. Look forward to seeing you in Austin sometime soon.

David Henzel 54:36
Thank you. And also visit me in Turkey. We’ve like this retreat, lots of space, just always, as long as I’m home, which is not that often lately, but you always have a place to stay. Just come

Brad Weimert 54:49
by and love it, man, until next time, thanks for checking out this episode of beyond a million if you liked the podcast, you should probably click the bell and subscribe and maybe leave a comment. Below that helps other people find us and keeps this flywheel going. And the more people that find us, the better guests that we can get on the show. So if you could take 30 seconds to do those things, it would be amazing. All right, the episode’s over. If you’re new here and you don’t know me, my name is Brad Weimer. I am also the founder of easy pay Direct, which is a payment processing company that serves a tremendous amount of our guests on the show and a ton of our audience, people like you. So if you’re accepting credit cards and you would like better service, better rates and a way to optimize the way that you’re accepting payments, you can check us [email protected] forward, slash b, a, m, again, that’s epd.com forward, slash, bam.