Eric Malka sold his car for $12,000 and asked himself the smallest possible question: what's the tiniest business I can start with this? Twelve years later, Procter & Gamble bought The Art of Shaving.

Three businesses failed before that one. The last one left him ready to quit entrepreneurship entirely, and it gave him the philosophy he's built everything on since. Start small and grow big, because starting big is a great way to grow small.

In this conversation with Lee, Eric lays out the choice he puts to every founder he advises: you can succeed in fifteen years or fail in five. He explains why most entrepreneurs he meets are ahead of their skis, what a business model actually is, and how a thousand conversations with customers in one tiny store wrote his entire brand for him.

He's also frank about the people who came after it. The supplier who demanded half the company or he'd cut off the products. The private equity firm he says deliberately wrote covenants designed to trip. The investment bank that cost him a third of his exit.

The last stretch is the one worth staying for. Eric hit every financial goal he'd set by the age of 40 and still felt anxious, and what he did about that is the part he says changed his life.

Take the free two-minute Executive Alignment Diagnostic at etw.com.

For more free videos, tools, and resources about the MIND Methodology go to https://etw.com/

A teenager watched a night of news full of leaders behaving badly and asked his grandfather, "Pops, you're a leader. Is that how you lead?"

That question became Keith Wyche's book. Keith has been President of Pitney Bowes US, a senior executive at IBM, and ran a 30,000-person region at Walmart. He's on the board of Brinks.

In this one he lays out how far trust has fallen, seven in ten people don't believe leaders tell them the truth, and government trust has gone from 73% in 1958 to 17% today, and what rebuilding it takes. His formula: trust equals character times competency times consistency.

Lee shares the moment that shaped his career, turning down a bribe from the customer that was 90% of his business, losing the account, and taking over the failing company by assuming its debt. It sold 23 years later for well into nine figures.

Take the free two-minute Executive Alignment Diagnostic at etw.com.

For more free videos, tools, and resources about the MIND Methodology go to https://etw.com/

"Priority" comes from a Latin root meaning first. So what's the plural of first?

Jay Papasan co-wrote The One Thing, which has sold more than 4 million copies in over 40 languages, and he's CEO of Productive, the One Thing Company. In this conversation with Lee, he argues that you can only ever have one priority, and that most productivity problems are clarity problems wearing a disguise.

Jay walks through the diagnostic he uses with every client. Productivity sits above the waterline, priority sits below it, and purpose sits below that. When someone comes to him with a productivity problem, he starts three levels down. He also shares the core values exercise that became his own unlock, why "should" is almost always a shame-based statement, and the weekly meeting he's held with his own goals virtually every week since September 2000.

Lee brings the other side of it, including what three spinal surgeries taught him about performing in a season that isn't your best one, and the mantra that came out of it.

Also in this one: the Day Before Vacation Miracle, why Hemingway wrote at a fourth grade level, why you can't time block a goal, and the question worth asking anyone walking into a storm.

Take the free two-minute Executive Alignment Diagnostic at etw.com.

For more free videos, tools, and resources about the MIND Methodology go to https://etw.com/