Frank and Ian gave up on the Detroit Lions or Miami Dolphins winning a Super Bowl long ago. Instead, we revel in the pomp and circumstance of the NFL Draft, when hope springs eternal and our teams make highly questionable decisions on personnel. In this episode, we break down our top lessons from decades of watching this bloated spectacle that has done little to change the fortune of our favorite football teams.

In this episode:

• Why game film matters
• Looks can be deceiving when hiring
• How Bill Polian looked at character flaws
• Pedigree is important, but not that important
• When to take a chance on a "project"
• Hire for need, but don't pass on an unusual talent
• Even the best companies regularly missing on hiring
• Hire slow and fire fast
• Why culture still trumps talent

The peak–end theory is a cognitive bias that impacts how people remember past events. Intense positive or negative moments (the “peaks”) and the final moments of an experience (the “end”) are heavily weighted in our mental calculus. In this episode, we look at how this psychological bias impacts our careers and how companies can use the rule to attract and retain more customers.

In this episode:

• What's more important: a good first impression or last impression?
• What a colonoscopy can teach us about delighting customers
• Primacy bias and premium pricing
• What do we really remember about work experiences?
• The role of onboarding and exit interviews
• The sandwich method of providing feedback
• The "Sugar" Ray Leonard approach to getting a better raise

How much time do we have left? In this episode, we break down the second half of our lives by looking at how many of our favorite experiences we have left. How many more times will we watch a Super Bowl? How many more fantasy football seasons? How many more times will Ian eat pizza at Lombardi’s in NYC? Frank and Ian use this exercise to dissect how they are spending their time more deliberately.

In this episode: 

• Why people tend to overestimate how much time they have left 
• How life milestones act as “awakenings” 
• How we form our images, both personally and professionally 
• How to be deliberate about where you spend your time (and who you spend it with) 
• What moments will we remember in forty years and why not make more of those? 
• How to prioritize your life for balance 

People tend to fall into two categories as decision-makers. The first group is maximizers, those who strive to make choices that will return the maximum benefit. Then there are the satisficers (made-up word blending satisfy and suffice), those whose choices are determined by more modest criteria and nothing more. In this episode, we look at both approaches' ramifications and reflect on critical decisions we've made in our own careers.

In this episode:

• “The Paradox of Choice”
• Why maximizers struggle to enjoy the journey
• Paralysis by analysis
• What type of questions do you ask yourself when making a big decision?
• The concept of “mental accounting”
• Do the results of our decisions correlate with satisfaction?
• Where do famous CEOs fall on this spectrum?

Careers are not linear. We might feel societal pressure to make every move based on real or perceived progress, but is that realistic or even rational? In this episode, we look at multiple scenarios where taking a step back or down is the best move for your long-term career. Frank and Ian discuss the times when they made non-obvious decisions that set up much bigger moves down the road.

In this episode:

· What if your industry is changing/shrinking?

· How to spot a rocket ship and when to jump on one

· What it means to take a job to get "close to the sun"

· Choosing pay over fancy titles

· How a step back could restore your career

· Do you work in a department with upside?

· The role of ego in career decisions

· A 10-year decision looks very different than a 10-month decision

· What's your driver?

o Power

o Knowledge

o Pay

o Purpose

In this two-part episode, Frank Cava and Ian Mathews break down every detail from a $10M real estate project involving 75 single-family homes in Richmond. This is our first podcast episode where we film together in the same room, using Frank's paparazzi film crew and editors. We share every granular detail of how we identified, negotiated, funded, executed, and celebrated a deal that was incredibly profitable to us and the investors who helped us fund the deal.

In this episode:

· The power of patience when working in real estate

· Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered

· Caring about your investor's money more than you care about your own

· The best way to get a second deal is to perform well on the first

· Why you should stop to celebrate a big win appropriately

In this two-part episode, Frank Cava and Ian Mathews break down every detail from a $10M real estate project involving 75 single-family homes in Richmond. This is our first podcast episode where we film together in the same room, using Frank's paparazzi film crew and editors. We share every granular detail of how we identified, negotiated, funded, executed, and celebrated a deal that was incredibly profitable to us and the investors who helped us fund the deal.

In this episode:

The power of persistence and follow-up to find great deals

How a great partnership drives an equation of 1 + 1 = 3

How the deals you close are closely linked to your ability to execute

Profits are made when you buy, not when you sell

How to raise private capital from wealthy investors

What happens when a profitable deal gets hit with a pandemic

How to communicate to investors when a deal starts to go sideways

We're breaking tradition and interviewing our very first guest! Given the meager budget for this fledgling operation, we searched for a future star that we could afford today. Yoni Katz is a 12-year-old entrepreneur and a big fan of our podcast. He is starting several businesses and wanted to get our insight. Little did we know that Yoni would teach and inspire us more than we could help him!

In this episode:

· Building a personal brand at any age

· How to price your first products/services

· Small business guerrilla marketing

· How to work referrals

· Playing to your strengths

· The difference between features and benefits

· Pricing based on the value you provide

· Investing at a young age

We continue to follow the meteoric rise of Jeff Bezos and his growing juggernaut of a company. This second part of our series starts with Barnes & Noble threatening to crush Bezos if he doesn't sell out. Like most decisions Bezos makes throughout his career, he calmly rejects that offer and doubles down on his belief that Amazon can change the landscape of American business. From tech startup to the largest company in the world, we dive into the growing pains and changes Amazon needed to make with people and strategy to create a business that changed the world.

We’re suckers for a good “rags to riches” origin story of a scrappy founder stepping out into the abyss. What makes the story of Jeff Bezos and Amazon so intriguing is how comfortable Bezos had it when he went all-in on this company. In this first part of two episodes, Frank and Ian work through the early days of Amazon and find dozens of parallel lessons for any ambitious person looking to build a career.

“The Everything Store” is a fascinating look into an American business icon and we break down every juicy bit in this two-part series.