The Core Conspiracy Concept

So what I’m here to talk to you about today is what I call the core conspiracy concept. And now in our society, conspiracy gets a really bad a rap, right? It’s like “the conspiracy theory” or they “conspired” to commit a crime. It has a negative connotation, that word. But actually, a conspiracy is just two people or more coming together making a plan to create something, to have some outcome happen. And it can be for good.

And in my life, my core conspiracy or my main conspiracy is with my wife. We have a partnership, and that’s our highest priority in our life. We have very, very successful businesses. We produce a lot in our businesses. And we probably put 30 to 50 times more energy into our partnership and the communication that we have and that partnership working than we do our businesses.

If you want to have a successful business, it helps to have someone who you are creating a shared vision with, someone who you’re bringing that business into reality with. And having that as the highest goal and having that as the most important thing will actually have you create the best results in your business.

I think of it like a tree, right? So you see there’s a tree. And it’s a big beautiful tree. And it’s got leaves and flowers. And it’s amazing. All you see is the tree. And that tree is your business. But a tree that’s 100 feet tall has a root system that goes down 50 or 100 feet. The partnership that you create in your business, even if it’s you and you’ve got a main employee or something like that, is the root system of that tree. The root system is what feeds the tree. It’s what gives the tree life. And if you starve the roots, the tree shrivels up and dies.

And so if you’re building your business in service of your life, which is ultimately the goal, right? The goal is not to be working all the time. That’s misguided. A lot of people will give you the advice of hustle and grind and sacrifice. I think that’s the wrong advice. I think your business should be in service of what you want in your life.

And probably what you want in your life is connection to other people, is intimacy. Oftentimes, what people are chasing is connection to other people. And so if you have a connection, be it a romantic relationship, be it a relationship across the gender line or a relationship with a business partner, whatever the relationship is, if you have that as the highest goal and the most important thing, you’ll be very fulfilled. You’ll have a lot of fulfillment because you’ll have connection with another person. And you’ll be able to create results and create things that you couldn’t do on your own.

The old “two heads are better than one,” it really is true. You can really do amazing stuff with another person that you can’t do on your own. You get ideas. You get an objective viewpoint. So it’s a very, very cool thing to have in your life. And it’s a switch. It’s a different way of framing things and looking at things than having all your attention on yourself and trying to create your thing to having your partnership be the most important thing in your life.

And here’s a piece of a thing that we found, my wife and I have found to be very, very effective in partnership. So partnership, business partnership, romantic partnership, whatever it is, the thing that’s going to have that work well is communication. How good are you at communicating what you actually feel and sharing what you’re thinking and expressing how things feel to you and sharing what’s going on?

One of the best ways to ensure that you have clear and good communication is not to give beyond your surplus. A lot of times it’s easy . . . And this is harder than it sounds. A lot of times it’s easy to say yes to things when you don’t actually have surplus for that.

And the nicest thing that you can do for yourself and the people in your world, whoever that is, is to make sure that you are well taken care of. So if you’ve given beyond your surplus . . . And what I mean by that is someone asks you for something. You don’t actually have the time, energy to do it, but you say yes anyway because you feel like you should. And then you resent that person because you didn’t actually want to be doing this thing.

So it’s actually nicer to say no when you don’t have the surplus to do something than to say yes. And it’s hard to say no to someone that you love and someone who you want to help. But it’s a good thing to know when to say no, because you can actually only give from your own surplus. You can only give from what you have. You can’t give beyond what you have. If you do, you burn yourself out, and you feel resentment. So learning when you’re done and when you’re full and being able to express that is a very, very thing that will help you with your communication and with your partnership.

Ezra Firestone here talking to you about the core conspiracy concept with bare feet from Cold Spring, New York. I’ll talk to you soon.