Controversial Business Lessons From Napoleon, Edison, & Hitler

⚠️Warning⚠️

Our content is made solely for individuals with a long attention span and a thriving desire to improve.

If you’re not one of them, prepare to get bored.

Lessons From Hitler & Mr. Beast

Why on earth are they interested in this? Sam wanted to figure out why a country would be so complicit in such bad things. And he believed that we could learn good lessons from bad people.

What Ben Wilson learned from Sean, Mr. Beast and Hitler.
Mr. Beast challenges Sean to make a half-court shot, offering $10,000 as the prize. Sean humorously suggests receiving 10 grand in Bitcoin, and Mr. Beast agrees.

This great thing isn't about making the shot…
…It’s about what Sean did. He’s joking around and does his Mr. Beast impression, “I’m about to shoot from half court with Mr. Beast, and whichever one makes it first is going to make ten thousand dollars. (Imagine hearing this in Mr. Beast's voice.)

What happened? Interestingly, when they post the video, it actually popped off and went viral on TikTok.

Then Something Clicked in my mind - Ben Wilson
“Oh… It’s actually not that hard to figure out what you’re supposed to do to be successful in this kind of stuff; very few people are willing to commit to the bit fully.”

Mr. Beast fully commits to the bits…
…he does this thing every time he looks at the camera and says, “I’m about to give $1000 away to these people if they eat a cockroach.” enthusiastically and intentionally.

Hitler’s the same thing; if you go and watch those speeches, he’s ridiculous, gesticulating, yelling, and screaming. He is fully committed to representing German greatness.

Everyone thought he looked ridiculous outside of Germany; tons of people mocked and made fun of Hitler.

What can we learn from this people?
The idea of throwing away your shame and embarrassment—whatever you’re trying to do, just fully commit to the bits—could lead to success.

The Devil who end his family and himself

Joseph Goebbels, a German philologist and Nazi politician, kept a diary in which he wrote: “We’re going to go and end our kids right now, then we’re going to end ourselves because we and our children belong to the Führer; if the Third Reich won’t exist, we do not deserve to exist either".

Charisma: A double-edged sword
Sam Parr is stunned by the power of charisma it had over people, particularly the Goebbels family, who ended their lives because of it.

Strategies used by the Great Conquerors

Lightning Attacks aka Blitzkrieg…
…meaning, lightning attacks or lightning strikes and the idea was these short quick Phewww attacks, which was sort of a marketing stunt, it wasn’t anything practical or what the Nazis talked about.

What the Germans actually discussed was the word Schwerpunkt (gravity), which points out that the attacks weren’t just fast but also capable of being sustained and followed through for an extended period.

Napoleon used this same strategy “Schwerpunkt”.
When he realized his enemies were stretching out their troops further and further to try and flank him, he did the opposite and packed his troops and concentrate all the forces and punch a hole in the middle.

We could say the same for Amazon
Just like these great conquerors used ‘Schwerpunkt’, Amazon take tons of resources and focused on just books, and then they follow up on that victory.

Quick Tip: Try to focus on a specific goal or skill for a long time; diversified focus often leads to slow or no progress.

Addictions that shook the world

The thing about Edison that amazed Ben Wilson was the obsession he had. He was inventing so much that he’s skinny; he wasn’t washing his clothes; he smelled bad; he was barely sleeping.

He would invent and tinker until he fell asleep at his workbench and then do it again as soon as he’s awake. His family was even worried about him.

What does this story have to do with Addictions?
What if we substitute invention for meth or heroin? It's clear that this guy would be an addict.

So basically, Edison’s addiction is turned into something positive, something that would help out others.

So what about CEOs and other highly functioning individuals? Do they have problems like this too❓

Most people believed that these individuals didn’t have problems or substance abuse, but when they studied them, it turned out they were some of the most susceptible to these problems than the general population.

Mr. Beast and his gambling addict.
Mr. Beast shared with Ben Wilson that he struggles with gambling addiction. He would wager tens of thousands of dollars to Crypto Gambling Site, risking tons of money.

How did he turn this into something positive? YouTube, because it’s another form of gambling.🎰

Like gambling, when you put out a video on YouTube, you can’t say for certain that it will get 5K or 100M views. You can control some aspects of the content, like the thumbnail, editing, etc., but not the views; you just bet that it will go viral if you do your part extremely well.

You're The Special

Have you ever met a charismatic person? You might have noticed how effortlessly they connect with you, how well they listen, and the interesting stories they can tell, but wait — think again, because most of the time you do the talking, not the elegant, charismatic guy.

This indicates charismatic individuals have the unique ability to make you feel special instead of drawing attention to themselves.

Shocked? me too…
…because most of the time I often associate charismatic thinking with an internal magnetism, but it was quite the opposite.

Hypnotized by the power of charisma.
When Ben reflects back on the time he talked to “Suely”(hope this is right) at Camp MFM, he believes Suely kind of manipulated him (not in a bad way) because he was so interested in Ben’s story and his life.

Eventually, Ben told Suely everything about his life and story, but Suely didn’t say a thing, even though he’s a multi-millionaire with a successful business and interesting stories, which bewildered and amazed Ben by what charisma can do.

According to this podcast, charismatic individuals are skilled at:

• Good at pulling out information from others.

• Remarkable listeners.

• Smiles a lot.

• Genuine interest in making you feel special.

Consider cultivating this skill; it might be useful someday or today.

Plans are for the Weak?

Let’s get back to Napoleon.
During war, the French General found himself in a dire situation, his army doesn’t have guns, not enough ammunition, shoes and clothes, they are horribly undersupplied.

Then, Napoleon comes in and says “Today, I’m going to take account for everything that’s happening in this Army, and you’re going to give me the status of everything and tomorrow, we’re going to march.”

This statement shocked the army because they're in no shape to fight, and they were opposed to it.

In which Napoleon replied “An object at rest stays, an object in motion stays in motion.”. In simpler terms, “I don’t care”.

Long story short, they attacked, kicked the crap out of the Austrians in a week, and achieved victory.

Writing goals and planning are bad for you?
Ben realized he’s making problems that don’t exist. How? By telling himself:

• I Need more researchers.

• Need more writers.

• Have to research by myself.

• And bla bla bla.

Annoyed by this excuses, Shaan and Sam responded, “No, just put stuff out, put out more episodes.”

Much like Ben's experience, we have a tendency to plan out everything, waiting for things to be perfect and whole lotta preparing. Instead of this, what if you just did it? What if you just take actions that advance your goals every single day?

Sam’s thoughts on planning and action.
He believes that the world wants to make everyone “vanilla”, They push this dogma of planning out goals, workouts, tasks, etc., to keep you safe.

In reality, it’s self-masturbation; it impedes your growth by letting you think you’ve done something even though you did nothing.

Scared? You should be…
… But remember that most aspects of project work are reversible. Start, and you can refine and iterate as you progress.

Regards to taking action, Ben told an interesting story about the Greeks and the Romans.
From what I heard from this podcast, the Greeks were presumably much better academics than the Romans; they knew geometry, algebra, and philosophy.

The Romans didn’t know any of this stuff, but abnormally, the Roman construction and bridges were much better than the Greeks.

Why? The Greeks were too busy perfecting the geometry to build the best bridge.

The Romans would just build a bridge that crumbled and failed, rebuild it repeatedly, and then eventually they had the perfect way to build a bridge that would stand today.

Is this really true? Maybe, maybe not.
What matters is the emphasis on taking action. Instead of doing the fun and easy stuff, take action.

🎉You’ve made it to the end🎉

If you like this summary, feel free to check out the full video because I cut out some interesting things.

The video I summarized is by Sam Parr & Ben Wilson. You can check the full video on their YouTube channel.

For this particular video, Click here or the thumbnail.