What is your most valuable currency? What strength causes tension?- One Second by How to be Second

Nathan and Mondo unpack the currencies that guide their decisions, from Nathan walking away from a life-changing business deal that conflicted with his values, to Mondo choosing love and discernment over an opportunity that promised financial gain. Along the way, they explore purpose, integrity, faith, and why our greatest strengths can also become the traits that make us hardest to work with. 

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This is One Second, a conversation between two people with wildly different identities where we're exploring how we're different while embracing that we're better together. In our vernacular at How to be Second, I am a Second, and my co-host Armando Davison, is what we call a natural 1iC, or a Visionary. Enjoy. 

Transcript

Nathan 0:00

Hey, this is Nathan Young, founder and author of How to Be Second, and this is One Second, a react-style conversation between two people with wildly different identities. A Second, plans, systems, management, gets it done type of person... And what we call a natural 1iC, one of those in the clouds, ideas, visionary, entrepreneur type people. Each person is given a question before the start of the show, we hit record, and we see how two people with different identities react. We explore how we're different while embracing that we're better together. If you're glad this work exists, we need you to support it by either becoming a supporter for $5 at howtobesecond.com/support or shooting over an email to let us know why not. We cannot get better if we don't hear from you. On to the show.

video1090125372 0:41

What's up, Nathan? We are at it again, and I'm just gonna hop right into this question today because time, money, trust, health, a bunch of other different words that you can substitute in there for the word currency, right? Like, which of your currencies are the most, least valuable to you? And we all operate with different types of currencies, things that we feel like are important. So for you, as a second in command, TwoIC, what's your most important currency or most valuable currency, and what is your least? I love this question. This actually came from the poll that we put up on LinkedIn about what questions people might be interested in us answering on the pod. So for me, this actually relates back to, we anchor to this idea of love languages all the time. Yeah. It's one of the things we use in our matchmaking process, is actually to do the languages of working appreciation, it's called. And it's really the five love languages, but they took physical touch out. Like- Yeah, yeah like, uh, high fives only, please. But like, my love language, my top love language is, acts of service. And so for me, a lot of it has to do with that. When I look at time, money, trust, health, all of these things, like I think of money as a means to an end. I don't actually think of money as a means. Yeah. Money to me is representative of what I can get because of it. So I want time, I want health, I want, safety. These are the things that I want. I want community, and I want... And so, like, can money get me those things? Sometimes- Mm it can get me those things. Would I prefer a bunch of money and no one to ever do anything for me, but just pay me a lot, but no favors? I have to figure everything out on my own or whatever, but they'll, they would take care of my life. And the answer is no, actually, I don't want that. 'Cause I don't value money that highly. I value the doing of things and the things that I want, but I also value my own help. I like to do stuff. For me, some of the easiest things to give up are money and actually time. I find time to be, like, fairly easy to give up. I value the act of service much more highly than I value how much something cost, whether that was time or financial investment, right? If somebody gifts me a Lego set, that means a lot to me, no matter how expensive the Lego set is, because I'm like, "This is a thing that I wanted to get for myself that you went and you kinda did me a favor, and you got that thing for me." If someone takes out the trash, I'm like, "Oh, that currency is very valuable to me, because that's a thing that was on my list, and now you've saved me from doing that thing. You did that thing for me," So I tend to be a very large tipper- Okay 'cause I really appreciate the service, literal service, right? And I also tend to be very angry with tipping culture- Mm because I'm like, everybody's asking for 20% or whatever, some absurd, what I would consider absurd number, for nothing. Mm. Right? The person behind the counter is just flipping the thing around and being like, "Do you wanna pay 20% more?" For what reason? I'm like, But I'm paying for the service. You didn't do an extra service." Like... And so I would say those things tend to be the most and least valuable to me. I'm willing to sacrifice a lot of these other things- Okay. Let me- to get that. Yeah. Let me ask, so then somebody pays you to do something, and you feel like the thing that you're being paid to do is very important, and you wanna go be in service and help that person solve the problem. The value that you get out of it, can you unpack that a little more? Like, is it discovering the solution? Is it handing the solution off to someone and they're like, "Thank you. I am appreciative"? Is it something else that I'm unaware of? Help me understand the nuances of that act of service, because I don't know, there just seems like there's another layer, but I could be wrong. I'm not sure that I fully understand it, so I should start there. Let me ask it differently then. A person comes to you and says, "Nathan, I run a Fortune 25 company, and I have this impossible business thing that I want solved, and I have all the resources to do it. Would you like to opt into this challenge?" You're like, "Sure." Some other nonprofit organization that, is focused on the ecosystem or something, renewable energy, whatever, renewable whatever, but it's very, impact-driven and they're like, "We have this impossible problem. We want you to step in to help us solve it." Does solving the actual problem have more meaning to you because of what it is solving or who it's for? Or does it have to be tied to the thing that you valued? Or is it like, "I just wanna be part of something to solve the impossible thing"? Are there some other nuances that aids in the value of you wanting to deliver your act of service? It took a little while for me to say yes to that. Good. To be like, "Oh yeah, there's a difference." Cause at first I was like, "There's really no difference." I just wanna get involved and solve the, you know, like pitch me a thing, get me inspired, and I wanna do it. But no, I will say, I actually will say yes, and there is a value to what I consider good in the world that is very important to me. Mm. If some Fortune 25 company came to me and said, We want to replace 1,000 employees by creating some sort of automation," blah, blah, blah, blah- And we will pay you some astronomical figure to help us solve that problem. And a nonprofit came to me and said, "We can pay you a little bit, but what it will do is it will make sure that, we get to build the next three solar farms or whatever, and we have clean energy, and we get improved sanitation." Like, I would work on the improved sanitation. I would give up millions of dollars in compensation to be like- Mm we've made the world a more improved place for people, because I feel like that's a good in the world, and I feel like one of those things asks me to sacrifice people. For what reason? For the benefit of a few. And the other one asks me to do something that is truly what I would consider good. And so I wanna solve the problems on the way to where I want to go. Mm. I don't need to solve the problems on the way to where other people want to go that's different than where I wanna go. That's powerful. That's good. That, that statement right there is good. I wanna solve a problem that aids or supports the direction in which I wanna go, not the directions that others wanna go if it is different than the direction that I wanna go. Yeah, that's a very, like, strong distinction. We can keep going deep into that, but let me ask this last part of this. Has that always been true? No. I will tell you the story of when it became true. Okay. I grew my own marketing agency. So I started my own marketing agency. I grew that agency over the course of three years, and then at the end of the third year, very topsy-turvy experience, and we ended up selling the agency. That sounds a lot more exciting than it is. And all of that said, over the course of finding a buyer, I had one opportunity to sell for what would've been to me a quarter million dollars. I had other partners in the business, and so it would've been a larger figure, but it was gonna get split up among whatever. And so to me personally, it would've been a quarter million dollars. Now, that is life-changing money to me, right? I am not independently wealthy, I was like all in on this, right? It seemed like this was going in a very good direction. We had a couple of due diligence conversations. All of our stuff was, of course, very clean, and it seemed like there was incredible value on both sides. And as part of the agreement, I was actually not just gonna get this payout, but I was also going to go and work for the acquiring company and become the second in command at the acquiring company. So it was a little bit of an acqui-hire. They were gonna pay us a substantial amount for our assets, but They were like, "Okay, now you come work for us too." All of that sounded so incredible. As we were going through the process of how that company actually provided their services, one of the ways that we were looking-- We were reviewing their margin targets, and I was like, "These are astronomical margins. This is impossible. I mean, like, I've been in this industry for a while. There's no way to get this done. How is this happening? Do you have some sort of software or something like that?" I was very skeptical too. And they were like, "Oh, well, we outsource all of our stuff to..." whatever country it was at the time, And we pay them, like, $3 an hour. And so the highest band that we pay is $5, and so we start at $2.50, and then we go up to $5." And I was like, Is that good?" Right? Like I, I was struck. I was like, "Uh, no." This was a real wrestling match, right? 'Cause I was staring down the barrel of just say yes and figure it out later. You can donate all of the money that you get to whoever, you know, the people are on the slide. And like you can, like whatever. Do both, right? And, it became part of the conversation where that person said, If you are going to do this work, if we are going to do this deal, it is required that you use these people to do this work and only pay this much, because we want to be... We basically want to charge our customers a fraction of the cost in the market. This is how we wanna win, is by using these people at this rate to charge our customers this insanely impossibly low price, and we've figured out the systems to do it." And I don't know if you know what that sounds like, but I know what that sounds like to me. So I was like, Hey guy, I think we've been here before." And, I said no to that. I mean, it took me a little while, and I had some conversations with Samantha, and I had to sit and pray about it for a little while, and it was a real... I mean, like I had a moment with God where I was like crying, and I said, "I can't do this. I can't. There's no justification for this machine to exist in the world." I can't be part of building this machine Yeah Nothing is worth this. And the amount of shame that I would have carried having said yes to being part of that was, like, untenable to me. And I discovered in that moment that there are values that I have that are worth more that create that divide. That was the moment I discovered that this was true for me. Let me... God, I could not make this up. Oh, man. I'm so glad you told that story. I wanna say within the past two weeks, but to make sure that I'm being honest, I'll say within the past four weeks. Within the past four weeks, I was on a walk, and I was actually thinking about this. So for the audience, I was actually around in Nathan's life when this story decision-making was unfolding. And when you made that choice, it was actually the moment that I was like, He's set apart, and I can trust Nathan with business without pause." Like, it is the single most definitive moment in our relationship where I completely removed If money's involved, I don't even have to be in the room. I trust your integrity. Make the choice. If you're like, "Hey Mondo, I need your opinion," cool, I can step in. But if you're like, "I don't need your help," I was like, Nathan will make a decision that is fair and equitable if the option is there, and if it is not, he will say no. And so bro, like when you were telling that story, I'm like, I don't think you understand how impactful that was for me in our relationship, 'cause I don't think I ever told you that. But it was the moment that you were set apart and I just trusted you without pause on that side. So, great story. I, I, I appreciate that. I've had conversations where that story has come up and people have looked at me and been like, "You're stupid. You're genuinely stupid." So like for anyone who just listened to that story and what Mondo said, and being like, "The two of you are dumb. Like you could have... There was another way, right?" Mm-hmm. There are other people who are listening and going, Would anyone not make that choice?" Mm. And like there is a divide. There are people in the world who would think that you and I and what we just agreed on is a good way to exist in the world, is like the only choice. And there are also people who would listen to us say exactly that stuff and go, "That is a stupid decision that you made." And so I think that goes right back to what I said earlier about like I discovered that I want to only solve problems on the way to the place that I think is good, and there are other people who genuinely want to go to a place that I don't wanna go, and they also then have problems, 'cause a problem is just a rock in the road towards wherever you wanna go, right? And so there are people who are trying to get to a destination that have problems that I could solve, but their destination is not a place that I want to see us get to. Mm. And so they're not my problems, and I never want them to be my problems. Yeah. Okay, I've said a lot about this stuff and I've told a lot of stories, and so let me turn this back to you and say which of your currencies are the most- Yeah much better in life? I mean, I'll talk about, man, God, you are doing something today and I really appreciate it. Like my core currency is love. Every time I show up, I'm talking about love. Go to my website, I'm talking about love. I am just in agreement that love conquers all things. In the end, if you have love, you have life. And so if ever there's a choice between love and something else, I'm choosing love. However, I'm gonna tell this story. Actually, let me grab my phone I'm gonna tell this story, and this is not a jab at this person. If this person is listening to this podcast, this is not a jab at you, but it is an intersection that is important. It was like a definitive moment where I was like, "Oh, thank you for that opportunity, God." And so a couple days ago, I got a text from someone. This human being is a good human being. They are actually a God-fearing human being. Before I got this text- I had prayed in a Bible study the previous week, like, "God, give me discernment for what is for me. There are a lot of people doing good things, but give me discernment for my part of the story." And in that It was me envisioning this magical moment where some stranger came out of the blue and was like, You have an opportunity." The Fortune 2500 company came out of the blue and was like, "You have an opportunity. There, this is for you." And in that conversation, if they did not say the word love anywhere in the conversation, God was like, "It's not for you." And so I was like, "Okay, cool." So this person, person I love you, this is not a versus battle. This person randomly I hadn't talked to in a long time, years, texts me out of the blue and says, Up for coffee or a walk?" Question mark. I have some ideas that might generate money for us, and we can do it together. There's an opportunity to do ministry in the business world, but different." When I read it, I was like, "That's a very sensible text," but, something about it just didn't speak to my heart. It was actually like a, "Hmm. I was waiting for a text or somebody to reach out, but this just doesn't feel like it's it." And so I actually, waited and paused. Like, "Let me make sure that I don't respond in a way that is not healthy." So I waited a few hours and I was like, "Oh, okay, let me respond." And I responded by saying, This may be part of God's plan, but my initial reaction after reading it didn't speak to my heart. I'm gonna sit on this text until the morning and respond after I pray on it to ensure I'm not inadvertently blocking a blessing. Thanks for reaching out." That person responded shortly thereafter and said, Then it's not meant to be. Good luck." The story was so important to me because for me, when I say I prioritize love, that word wasn't said. And it felt like that person was prioritizing money, 'cause I've been putting videos out on social and I've just been telling my story on how I've been living with less. And with good intention, I imagine this person reached out like, "Oh, I can have an opportunity for money." And it was a moment where I could use a little bit more money, but I felt like God was saying, Are you going to be obedient and follow love, or are you going to follow this pathway for money?" And it just, it just felt like such an important definitive moment in my journey and my relationship with God, and that is just a prime example of me being like, money is important, but to your point, like, it's a means to whatever. But it's not an anchor of how I feel like impact should or could happen in the world. There is something else that's part of my story that I'm supposed to anchor on to be able to add value or be in service to others. And so yeah, that just happened the other day, and I do feel like it completely changed the trajectory of- How the next quarter, year of my life is going to unfold, so And what you just unpacked is fascinating to me, for two reasons. The first one is the idea that someone would say... Now, I come from a long ministry background doing all this stuff, right? So I am also, I move in the world in a faith-based way. I think we all move in the world in a faith-based way. You and I use the word God, and s- other people use whatever words, and probably a lot of it is strikingly the similar. But when we talk, we mean the same thing The idea that someone would say, "Here is a ministry that we could do," ostensibly on the same page, right? And then you would go, Hey, let me pray about it." And they would go, "Oh, if you need to pray about it, it's not right." It's like, dodged a bullet there. Bro, literally in my Bible study this past Wednesday when I told that story, that is exactly what that person said in the Bible study, "You dodged a bullet." And afterwards I felt that way. Again, person, if you're listening to this, this is not a shot at you, but the circumstances was me being obedient and, Mondo, that is not your plan. So yeah, man, definitely- Yeah when it comes to currencies in my life, love, money is, money's wherever it needs to be to further promote love. That's so funny. I just love, I love the idea of being like with your, the three tribal commitments and versus somebody coming along and being like, "Hey, I have this big opportunity because we're part of the same tribe." And you're like, "Well, hang on. I just wanna make sure that we're in line with the tribal commitments." And they're like, "Well, if you need to think about the tribal commitments- then it's not gonna work out." You're like, Uh," like "I agree." Anyway, it's like I'm being a little flippant about it, but it sticks out to me as just one of those things. That's awesome. There's a reason that we're friends and that I wanna hang out with you all the time, Yeah, man let me ask you our other question- Go for the day, and that is... 'Cause I just feel like we're sort of circling around this idea anyway. Go. What is the moment that you realized your biggest strength was also what made you hardest to work with? Cause I feel like you're touching on this already. I'm like, "Let's just go all the way in with this stuff." Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so, the moment, like a very specific moment I can't say, but I can say that I consistently hear the same tune over and over and over with people in my sphere. And honestly, my greatest strength is faith. And when I say faith, for the purpose of this conversation, I'm saying there is a outcome that I have no evidence for, and I am choosing to pursue that outcome without any evidence, and I am unwilling to stop pursuing that without any evidence because I have faith that because I am moving with love, God is using me to be a steward of love, and that outcome that I'm moving towards is just like a, it's like a checkpoint. Like, go north, right? I've talked about this before. That strength of mine, being in lockstep with God in my own way, has other people being like, "Bro- Can you relent a little bit? I have been one of these people. Like, man, all right, 'cause I'm gonna ask this question back to you 'cause I really wanna hear it, but last night I was watching an episode of The Chosen. It was actually, season three, episode eight. And he's in the Decapolis and there's a bunch of issues with all these different tribes in the Decapolis, and then Jesus is like, "All right, squad, we're gonna go up there and we're gonna have a conversation." And so it's a moment where him and his disciples are surrounded by all these different tribes and he's like, Take a seat," talking to his disciples. And they take a seat, but they're like, "Yo, we're kind of afraid. You got all this conflict around us and you want us to surrender and take a seat?" And so they take a seat, and then Jesus heals somebody that comes up and then everybody else ends up taking a seat, and they're listening and having these conversations around this conflict back and forth. And then they're like, "Yo, it looks like, Jesus, you don't have an answer to all this conflict." And Jesus goes, "Hold on. Let me tell you a story." And then everybody goes, "Oh." Like, "Here you go. Another story, another parable." And I feel like me moving in this way where everything is about faith, that's what happens when I'm brought into the conversation. I'm like, "Oh, that's interesting. Let me bring God into the middle of this. Let me tell a story. Let me anchor on this thing." And I feel like people around me too often are like, Oh, here goes Mondo with another story, with another opportunity where we're supposed to look for God to find an answer to this thing." And it's gotten to a point to where I laugh and chuckle about it, but that's just my role in the story, right? So yeah, my strength is faith, and it's also the thing that people are just like, "This dude doesn't have any other arrow in his quill, he just keeps pulling that same one out." And so, yeah. With that being said, and you then being a second in command that has worked with me, clearly you're like, "That's cool, man. Use that arrow all you want," right? Great. Uh, but let me throw it back to you. What is your biggest strength? What is that thing in your quill? And, you know, how has it made it hard for others to work with you because of it? I love that story you're telling. I've been in the room on both sides, by the way, with Mondo where I'm like, "Mondo, land the plane." And he's like, "I have no landing gear. It's literally not part of who I am." And I've been in the room where we're seven people stuck on the ground. I would say way more often- Mm I've been in the room with seven people stuck on the ground. Mm. And then Mondo comes in and he's already in the air. He's doing air recon above everyone. And he's like, "Yo, I have a question and I have a story." And everyone on the ground is like, This is world-changing, perspective change," right? "How did you even come up with that?" And Mondo's like, "I live in the air." Like, I'm on a floating island in the air. That's where I live." Oh, man. That's so funny. I've been in the room. I've been in the room. It's crazy both ways. It's crazy both ways. Yeah. I was just at this workshop yesterday. I was in a room with, like, 50 entrepreneurs and, we were talking about working genius, and everyone had taken the working genius assessment. If you're not familiar with working genius, I'll just let you look it up, but effectively, it's this idea that we have a lot of energy for certain kinds of work. We're very competent but don't have necessarily a ton of energy for some kinds of work, and then we are actively frustrated by other kinds of work. It's all about energy. It's not about competence in that it doesn't mean you're good or bad or something. It just means you have a lot or not as much energy to do certain kinds of work. Okay. Every single person in that room had energy, massive energy for having big ideas, wondering what the next thing was, and rallying people. And a lot of people had energy for seeing what people needed and, helping them along. And three people in a room of 50 people had big energy for discernment, which is deciding the few things that need done, and tenacity, which is to actually see things through to a full state of execution. Mm. Those are my two strengths. Those are my two geniuses in The Working Genius, are discernment and tenacity. I'm competent at wonder and invention, which is the big ideas. I'm competent, which usually puts me in a good place. It's easy for me to navigate things with dreamers because I understand it. I have energy for that. And then I'm incredibly good at deciding and then executing, and I have crazy energy for just grinding something out- Mm and just staying on that path until a thing is done. What is my working frustration is the other bit, is the galvanizing enablement, as it's called in Working Genius, which is basically the rah-rah, sis-boom-bah bit of, you know, like, getting everybody excited about the idea, and then coaching people along the way. Those are my frustrations. Mm. Mm. So, like, one of my biggest strengths is that dreamers are really hard to pin down. Mm. And I'm excellent, and I have infinite energy for sitting with people who live in the clouds, on a floating island in the clouds, and getting a few decisions made. Yeah. I have almost infinite energy to do that. Yeah. And I have the tenacity to, like, hold them to that- Mm and everyone else until the thing is complete Being a decider and executor means that I am the hardest to work with because of that, because I'm like, "We decided, now shut up and do it. I don't understand why we're still talking." And I have that on both sides. Mm. So, like, my biggest strength. It's come up... I can't tell you a story because I have 1,000 stories of this, right? You were in a room, you decided something with Nathan. He didn't talk to you for three weeks, and then he checked in with you after three weeks and was like, "Are you done yet?" That's my life. That's my whole life. Like I said, I could tell you 1,000 stories about it, but it's just the moment, I don't know, I was probably like eight years old and was like, "Oh, this is this way," and it's been that way ever since. Well, to just make sure that we end this podcast properly, my response to that is yes. That is, that is, that is Nathan. Yes. Mondo has been in the room. Oh, dude. Oh, that's so funny. Okay. Well, we'll honor, that, the humor of all of that, and we'll set it down right here.

Nathan 28:17

Hey, it's Nathan again. If you made it to the end, that's awesome. I have a couple ways you can go deeper whether you resonated with the Second or the OneIC in this conversation. How To Be Second is a community of Seconds, people with this identity, and we're also experts at shepherding the journey of first-in-commands and Seconds from growing alone to going together, to growing together. Either way, you should join our email list at howtobesecond.com/email. If you resonated with the Second in this conversation, we have a ton of resources for you, like our community, our book, our guide system for Seconds, our assessment, coaching, meetups, even a professional development platform with job postings from our partner companies. If you resonated with the OneIC, we support your growing alone, going together, and growing together journey with coaching with a natural Second, our matchmaking-not-recruiting service where we help first-in-commands find their right-fit Second, and coaching for already connected first and Seconds to keep you growing together. Finally, if you're inspired by what we're doing here, you can support How To Be Second at howtobesecond.com/support. Thanks again. I'm looking forward to our next conversation.