The Surprising Power of Consistency in Business

Full transcript

The thin line between conviction and ego

Welcome back to the podcast. Today, we are joined by Matteo Hernandez. Matteo, welcome to the podcast. Hey. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me on. For anyone meeting you for the first time, what are you focused on most right now? Yeah. Focused on people meeting me for the first time, I'm really focused on building my media company, the Mateo Hernandez podcast. And the broader vision for it, we wanted to be a large marketing company. So we want to do events. We want to have other hosts. We delve specifically in entrepreneurship and money, and we bring on investors. We bring on entrepreneurs. We bring on executives in our niches to cater to inspiration and education for mainly younger entrepreneurs, but, you know, everyone is welcome both within that 35 to twenty twenty year old age range. Matthew, I saw that you wrote a post about honesty and integrity, basically saying that the business world needs more of it, and that's something you learned firsthand during your time at Fifth Avenue Capital. What actually happened that made that lesson feel like you should share it to the people? At my time at Fifth Avenue? Mhmm.

Yeah. So, I mean, my time at Fifth Avenue was great. I had I still talked to, uh, my boss, Reagan, uh, Reagan Rodriguez. He's a great mentor. Uh, he's a financier, and he is definitely a man of integrity. And he taught me a lot about punctuality. He taught me about how to treat people with respect, how to hold yourself with the highest degree of professionalism. And so that's really where the integrity cut, you know, be who you say you are. Very you know, there's a lot of people who claim to be all sorts of things, but that that's that's where I got that from, and I carry that with me through, uh, my companies and and my company and, um, what I do on a daily basis every day. A lot of people say that they value integrity, but in practice, they actually bend when it's convenient. Right? So when you meet someone new, maybe a founder or partner or an employee, are there any sort of signals that tells you that this person is solid? Oh, sure. Yeah. There's there's signals, but you have to ask the right questions.

So when you onboard a new employee or a founder or a partner, you have to spend time with them. You have to spend time with them. You have to ask them questions. You need to see if your ethics and values align. And more often times than not, when you ask specific questions, whether it has to do with ethics or how they think or what they value, you're gonna realize, I think, sooner than later if it's a good fit or not. But it comes from and that's a very difficult thing for, I think, most business owners to do is to simply have a conversation and get to know each other, you know, and to ask the tough questions, you know. But if you don't ask the tough questions, then you could be introducing someone that is unaligned with the vision and the direction of what you're trying to do or achieve. Yeah. Mhmm. Also, in another post, I saw that you had a pretty strong take that not starting a business can come down to a lack of conviction and that dreams become real only when there is action that is ritualized.

Vision for media company

Where do you actually draw the line between, you know, healthy conviction and just having a ego or posturing? Really good question. So the line between, uh, conviction and ego is somewhat thin. I think the difference is this is a team sport. Like, the game I'm in is a team sport. Uh, not not a single person can do it on their own. It may start with you, but it doesn't end with just you. And so conviction is important because if you don't have the conviction, you can't do anything. Right? Um, people that have know, we all have an ego. You just need to monitor it. I believe in having conviction that I can do something. And I believe in being confident with that conviction. Right? But you can't even get the confidence in the beginning. The confidence comes at the end. Right? Or somewhere in the middle. But you need courage. Courage is probably the right word. You need courage to start and the confidence builds. People that have an ego are those that have success or maybe they don't have success.

And they think of themselves bigger than what they actually are. Right? Because when you start a venture, there's so many moving parts. Within the administration, within the vision, within your network, there are relationships to maintain. There are details you need to take account for. So those that have giant egos are really just people that are seriously delusional. And they're not understanding they're not understanding how complex these things are and how it's important to stay humble. And it's important to to you know, it's there's nothing wrong with posting, uh, accomplishments. But when you post things and say this was all on me, I'm the one who did this. Right? And you you don't give credit to other people. That those are people who are ego centered. Everything has to be about that. That is not how I am. And so that's that's really the line. Is it all about you, or is what you're doing a critical piece to to the whole of the pie? That makes sense. Mhmm. Yeah. Definitely. Um, I would like to make this a little bit practical. If someone listening wants to start something, but they are stuck in this,

let's say, idea mode, what's the first non obvious question action, sorry, that you'd tell them to take in the next seven days to actually create some kind of momentum for them? Yeah. Really good question. So, I mean, it took me, I think, two years. I had this idea maybe two or three years ago, and I wasn't very consistent. And I wasn't sure if I was all in on what I wanted to do. Um, I have no regrets about what happened because I think everything I've been doing has been leading up to this moment. But I would say to someone else who's a bit younger, be consistent and just start it. And you have to ask yourself, what am I trying to do? Is it is it reasonable? Right? That's kind of a hard thing to ask, but, like, you have to look at the resources you have. You have to look at the network you have. You have to look at the capital you have. Okay. Within reason, what can I do? And I think there's a lot of ideas

that, you know, if it's an online business or anything online, anything online can be done today for free. Like, I, you you know, I I still use free meal models. I'm not using premium, you know. So and also, like, it's gonna look bad in the beginning. That's how it that's how it works. So just figure out a a short term plan, put together maybe two or three or four things that you wanna accomplish, and then set aside get your calendar out, set aside time, a system of every day or three days a week. Maybe you start two days a week. Right? And keep consistent with that, and then just build on it. But you have to understand, you know, if you don't start, then you don't have consistency. You're not gonna have momentum. So that's something I still I'm I'm consistent, but there are some days where it's difficult to to get what to what I need to get to. So, um, just stay in that battle and and just start and and make sure it's something that, um, you enjoy doing, you're good at doing, and that there's some need

there's a need for it in in the community, the broader community. That's that's what we're Yeah. I like Have courage. That's the main thing. Have courage. You know? I think a lot of it is fear. But you can't Yeah. You're an entrepreneur. You can't care what other people think. That's part of the business. So Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, action and consistency are, like, the almost the recipe for success, basically, in anything, not just business. Even if you want maybe to have a good body, for example, you know, you need to lift weights and you need to do it consistently for a long period of time. Now you mentioned leadership and philosophy and also networking as key areas that you've learned through your university clubs. What's one leadership lesson that you learned the hard way? Is there something that you didn't get from reading a book? Yeah. So that's a good question. You know, I you hear this you know, I'm I'm I'm American. I'm from, you know, originally South Florida. Uh, but, you know, in America, you hear this the buzzword leadership a lot. You know, it's leadership is it's something that's, I think,

learned. You know? Leaders are built. They're not born. So trust me on that. Like, you know, there's actionable steps you can take today to be a better leader. And all that really is is just accountability. It's it's accountability. It's following through with what you say. It's giving credit to others, not yourself. You can get things from books for sure. I mean, if you wanna read about great leadership, uh, read about Napoleon. Uh, read about Marcus Aurelius. Read, uh, any great US you know, Ulysses S. Grant, for example, great general. You can read about other entrepreneurs such as read about Bezos. Read from the best. I'm like, Bezos, Musk, how do they lead? Uh, Michael Saylor, how does he lead? Compare the leadership styles. But I think it's just the basics. Accountability, honesty, integrity, giving credit to others, and be willing to do the work that nobody else wants to do.

You see? Because that's how you inspire others. So it's just following through. It's it's action based, I think. It's making the hard choices that other people don't wanna make. It's being uncomfortable. That's what I think it is. And you're you you might be a, you know, not so good a leader in the beginning. It doesn't matter. You'll get better. You'll learn. Just go out there. Go through some pain, you know, and, um, figure yourself back up. Keep going. Yeah. Mhmm. Now since you are aiming towards the finance side, I'm curious how you think about this when you look at a business or an idea. Are there any things that you pay attention to? Maybe a revenue model or the margins. Yeah. Finance are the things I I pay attention to. I mean, you know, as an entrepreneur, you need to understand the basics of finance. You need to understand accounting, how that operates. You need to understand, I think, blockchain technologies, how that's how that's that's looking looking to be. You need to understand markets. You need to understand how Wall Street works broadly

because what whatever Wall Street's doing is going to have an effect on your business. That's just kinda how it goes. The like, once you under start understanding the the the the financial matrix, you start realizing, oh, this company is invested in this company, which is invested in this, you know, endowment fund or this pension. It affects everything. So, you know, take it with a grain of salt. I'm not saying you have to be an expert, but just know how stuff works. Know how finance you know? When you go to a bank, understand the terms. When you go to an angel investor, understand how they work. When you go to a VC, understand how they operate, right, at whatever level you're looking at. So, you know, it's always important to understand securities, you know, how do equity equities operate, how do debts operate, what is Bitcoin. Everyone should know what Bitcoin is. I don't care who you are, what you're doing. You need to know what Bitcoin is because that's something that can arguably, uh, act as an umbrella for your company. And so there's

I think it's pretty clear understanding basic finance, and it's easy to understand. It's not complicate. It gets complicated when you have the layers. Right? And then you have, I don't know, uh, Peter Schiff saying, you know, using all sorts of different, uh, financial jargon. But he's just operating at very high level, but what he's talking about is very basic things or anyone that is at the the top of the financial world. You can look at Carl Icahn, Michael Saylor, etcetera. Yeah. Yeah. As you mentioned, the Bitcoin, I just the other day, I saw a video where they were walking on the street and asking random strangers if they would like 1 Bitcoin or a thousand dollars. And, like, 85% of the people said that they would like thousand dollars instead of having 1 Bitcoin, you know, which is yeah. That's ridiculous. That's crazy. That that really just shows how financially illiterate people really are. Now Yeah. If you could go back to your first semester and give yourself one piece of advice about anything, what would you say and why? I mean, if I could, I

I don't know. It's such a tough question. I learned so many important, like, lessons in college. I learned important lessons with, like, relationships, with discipline, with control, like self control. You'd be amazed how many people the majority of people that don't have self control. How And important that is when it comes to relationships and to business and all this other stuff. I would say probably just start. I should've, I think, started sooner with creating content and interviewing people. Because then I would've been up ahead a lot. I would've been up maybe five x, 10 x than where I am now. But also you gotta think about, well, was I ready to do that? You know, everyone's at a different stage in life. You know, some people are ready to make certain commitments than others. So for me, it was the perfect timing doing what I'm doing. Maybe if I started sooner, that would have interfered with my grades or that would have interfered with my relationships or that would have interfered with something else that's equally or more important.

So there's trade offs to everything. But I would say, start soon with the content if I could, maybe two days a week, you know, something light. I don't think I'd be able to do five five days a week of just putting out content, editing because it's a lot of work. So that that's that's what I would say. Start start sooner, start smaller, and I probably would have had a bit more of a head start. Yeah. Maybe more connection. On the other hand uh-huh. On the other hand, you know, you started, which is the important part of this, is that you are on the track. Right? Yeah. So that's what I would say. You know, there there is a upside to this. Anyways, thanks for joining the podcast, Matteo. I will add your LinkedIn profile so people can connect, and thank you guys for watching. Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it.