Morgan Friedman (Host): Excited to have today, we’re going to have a fun story with Robert… wait… his last name is pronounced Indriesh, but is written Indries in English. Is that correct, Robert?
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Yeah, I think that’s fine.
Morgan Friedman (Host): I got it, I think. Okay, I’m excited to hear your story. Let’s go, I have my coffee with my NASA cup in hand.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): So, we’ve had the privilege of working with over 200 projects in 19 different sectors, so, you would expect that after so many projects, so varied, so many different types of businesses from businesses making just a few million to multi-billion dollar entities, everywhere in the world. That you won’t have any more horror stories, right?
Like you’ve, learned to set expectations correctly. Like you would expect that these things don’t happen anymore. However, what I can tell you is after eight years of constant growth, like grow, grow, grow, grow every single year for eight years since our inception. In year eight, more or less, I’ve had the misfortune of hiring a person that was a psychopath within the company.
Morgan Friedman (Host): I just want to interrupt you for a second.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Sure.
Morgan Friedman (Host): First, I’m excited to hear any story that involves a psychopath, but also, your introduction is destroying the whole premise of the podcast. I’m trying to teach everyone, say, it gets better.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): It does get better. It does get better. It does. So, I will… I’ll go, I’ll go into that. So, basically we hired someone that’s a highly functioning psychopath and we didn’t know because you don’t know this stuff, the interviews are great, they’re…. they seem to be very skilled, very competent.
And then we hired them we started working with them. And then there are some red flags at the beginning, however, what we do within our companies is we have what we call PDPs, which are Professional Development Plans.
And so within that, once a month, we have PDPs with every person or we should. And then within those, we discuss, okay, here is what you’ve done during this period. And this is what I would prefer you to do differently next time. And likewise, they can tell me as their manager… it’s a two way street, right? I give them feedback and they give me feedback.
Like, how would you prefer to be managed? Also, if there’s no back and forth feedback, this time can be reserved to discuss their future career. Like, what else did they want to learn? Where did they want to progress? And so on and so forth.
So we had the PDPs, we would give this person feedback and then they would apply the feedback. At least from an optics perspective, from the business ownership towards them, it would appear that they apply the feedback, right? So…
Morgan Friedman (Host): Okay.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): However, what they’ve learned to do is they’ve basically learned to lie better within the organization. So with every time we will give them feedback.
They would know how to hide their actions more and better, right? However they would do it. And so they kept doing that over and over again. And we picked up clients just like we would every year.
Morgan Friedman (Host): Can you give one example of the sort of feedback that you gave and then how they hid it the next time?
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Well, for example, we told them that they need to… because they were a high position… high ranking position within the company, we told them that they need to have PDPs with their own star. Like, they need to have them with everyone. And they said okay I agree and they understood and then, they didn’t have them and I said look you have to have them.
It’s requirement… it’s within your job description, you have to have them. They said, “Okay.” So what they did, they did two things to… I mean… several things but… number one, they had a few people that they liked, that they were having calls with, right? Okay, so that’s one. So they had like a… I’m not 100 percent not doing it with anyone.
Number one, they had a few people that they’re doing it with, maybe three people. Number two, they would say that, some people do not want to have hop on calls with him, because they’re too busy, because whatever and so on and so forth.
And then the third lie was that he was having them with… within text, like just text PDPs basically, right? Okay. So, they managed, and these guys are very good, by the way. To a very large extent based on comparisons, I’m in no way stupid, right? Or dumb.
However, these people are so good at skewing the facts and lying to you that you literally can’t tell if it’s really difficult or if like maybe you’re wrong in your perspective and you’re being firm on certain things, they make you doubt yourself, right? In all of these moments.
Morgan Friedman (Host): Okay. Okay. This is interesting. Good. So what you’re saying is, bullshit can be so good, it becomes an art. And these guys were like… these guys were like Picassos.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Yes. Exactly. Yes, they were so good at it.
Morgan Friedman (Host): As a parenthetical comment, I want to say, this is sometimes what I think about… there is an American writer you might’ve heard of named Malcolm Gadwell, and he’s very popular, especially among the intellectual class and like the business… I’m a businessman, but I’m in an intellectual class.
They all love him, but I’ll tell you the hesitation I always have about Malcolm Gadwell, which is, he writes too well. He writes so beautifully. I read any of his books or articles and every sentence, I’m like, oh my god, this is genius, this is brilliant. But what happens is, I read anything he writes and then a week later I’m thinking about it.
I’m like, wait a minute, it actually makes no sense and the fact that he’s so good at writing, hides the fact that it’s all kind of bullshit.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): So I think, many people that are writers want to get their words out, right? And so all of those writers know that 90 percent of their work is not going to be good.
But, they write as exercise because that’s the only way they can practice their art, right? So, even Picasso, I’m sure if you would ask him, he would say, oh, no, those 90 pieces, I would never look at them, right?
These 10, are the ones, right? And so… however, it’s just… as you said, they’re so good at painting, writing, or whatever they’re good at, that you just say, oh my god, this is amazing work, you know?
Morgan Friedman (Host): Totally, totally.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): So whatever Malcolm… if you would sit down with him and have a chat, I’m sure he would say the same.
Yeah, I agree. These are not good and then this is the only one you should read. So… basically, going back to this person, I’ve never worked with a psychopath before, or at least not to my knowledge, right? This guy was the first person to hold a senior level position that had people under them and so on and so forth.
And so, his impact, positive or negative on the business could be very significant, and I’ll share the horror stories in a second. The only thing I will say before that to preface is that it does get better after that. Like, for example, once I realized what I had to deal with, I realized that we don’t operate in the same reality.
Because there’s a reason why they are psychopaths. They operate in a different tangent of reality. So, if you would… were to talk to me, and you would never in a million years allow yourself to lie in my face the way that they could, right? That for you is because you’re a normal human being.
Like, you would have conscience issues, right? Like you couldn’t sleep at night, you know? Through lying through your teeth every time someone speaks to you or through skewing the facts or through, you know, just… he stole clients from us, he stole employees from us, and so on and so forth. Just very bad, very unethical, and so on and so forth.
So many, many things happen. However, I’ve… through this, hopefully, learned how to… number one, spot them and number two, work with them. And so, a few things there, two lessons I’m going to relay before I go into the horror stories. Number one is that there is a dark triad, that’s how it’s called. They’re the dark triad.
And it explains, if you go deeper into it, that you can never be a psychopath without being a narcissist and a Machiavellian at the same time. These three things go together. So you can’t be one of these and not be all three. You have to be all three if you are one. So if you’re a narcissist, you’re also a psychopath to a certain extent, and you’re also a Machiavellian.
And so on and so forth, okay? So all three of these go together. You can never have one without the other. So that’s one. So, if you feel that anyone’s a narcissist, already be careful, right? Because they… they have psychopathic tendencies, okay? So, it’s an issue. It’s a… like some people are blind.
These people are narcissists, right? There’s a different type of blindness. Let’s say, one in which they cannot accept fault. Because they cannot accept fault for themselves, for their mistakes, for their actions, for their… what they’ve done wrong, they will always have a villain in the story, which is never them.
Someone else is always the villain, and they always make up a villain, and they’re so good again at it. Their brains, sadly are wired in a way that they can never be at fault. So always someone else to blame, right?
For whatever it is that’s going on. And then number two, I talked to a psychotherapist, a while ago, a few months ago, and it was such an enlightening conversation because I’m like, how do you know that you’re talking to one?
And she’s like, Robert, it’s so easy. You… it will shock you. Coming out of a conversation with a narcissist, will leave you more confused than when you went in.
Morgan Friedman (Host): The same.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): So when you’re going into a conversation, you’re confused because you don’t know what happened.
Was this, was that, was it what… like what happened? Why did this not turn out the way it should, right? This was the KPI. This is what you said you’re going to do. This is what should have happened. Now, I’m confused going into conversation.
What’s going on? And to know… to spot narcissist or a psychopath is half an hour later, an hour later, wherever the conversation is done, you’re even more confused.
Now, you’re left doubting yourself. You don’t understand what’s going on. You’re left thinking, am I… are my systems not right? Where’s the flaw in the system?
Like you’re left thinking so many things, like you’re so confused, where in fact, you did not do the work that you had to do. You did not hit the KPI.
And the only thing you’re coming up with are these amazing Malcolm Gladwell- ish excuses, like just support, hassle- level excuses of why you didn’t do what you said you’re going to do, right?
And another thing that we gave him feedback on is you said that up until, let’s say, end of March, you’re going to do this.
Okay, it’s middle of April and you haven’t done that and you haven’t told anyone that you haven’t done that. Any business you go to, any manager you go to, you know that is not how a professional conducts themselves.
If you fail at something, a professional will have the courtesy to say, I didn’t do it, I didn’t manage, I need two more weeks, whatever.
That conversation comes from that professional. However, if they are narcissistic, they can’t take blame. Remember, this is a fault, it’s a handicap. It’s like, again, some people can’t see or don’t have a hand or whatever.
These people cannot take fault. So, you can either work with them knowing that they’ll never take blame or whatever it is, or you just fire them and you let them do damage somewhere else.
But basically, within this, we… I will tell them, no, it’s yours… why didn’t you tell anyone? And you know what they would say? Well, I thought it’s obvious, if no one would tell you that it would didn’t get done, obviously wasn’t done.
I’m like, what are you talking about? I have better things to do and to think about than whatever we agreed on six weeks ago. You need to tell me if you’re not going to do the thing that we agreed to six weeks ago.
Well, yes, Robert. But you should also trust me that I have good judgment and knowing that if I prioritize things differently, it’s for the better of the organization. And then I’m like, well, do I trust their judgment or not? You know, like it literally… like you… it puts you in this confusing pattern of where am I wrong here?
Like, should I trust blindly their judgment? Because that’s why I hired them in this position?
Morgan Friedman (Host): That’s… I have to say that’s, Picasso level.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Exactly. It’s so good. You would not imagine how good they are and I’m left wondering, no, you should have still told me, even if you change your priorities, you should still tell the person, your manager that I’ve changed priorities.
I was not able to do this because of that, right? In proactively, I don’t need to ping you about it, right? And so many conversations like this. Dozens, dozens, and dozens. I’ve doubted all of my managerial philosophies. I’ve doubted my ethics. I’ve doubted my values. I’ve doubted everything I could have doubted about myself in that one and a half years or however much this person was in our organization.
I’ve doubted. Okay, so, now let’s go to the horror story. Now that you have context about what, what happened.
Morgan Friedman (Host): I love it.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): So for eight years we’ve grown, every single year, grow, grow, grow, grow, right? And so that just doesn’t stop, right? Because I was on an uptrend, right? I was making wealthier friends, wealthier friends, better connection, better networking.
I was getting better at selling what I do. I was getting better at what I do and so on. So say everything would just grow and grow. And so we hired this person within a boom of… hey, I need someone to now take over the reigns here, so that I can go on and do more networking, bring us more projects and so on and so forth.
So we did that. And so I didn’t stop what I was doing. I was bringing on more and more and more, right? So, let’s say that specific entity was maybe a… I don’t know, 1.5 million a year when they joined, then they were at 2 point something million, then they’re like close to 3 million, right? And so on. So it kept still growing.
However, we were failing at every single project we were bringing on. The difference, from the first eight years to the last two, was that in the first eight years when I would tell someone this is going to be a quarter million and you’re going to have it by April, I would tell them this is going to be half a million, it’s going to be done by May, right?
Half a million dollars spent later in May, it was half done. And you can imagine the horror stories that started after because I was busy networking. I was busy doing sales. I was busy doing everything I actually should have been doing.
Morgan Friedman (Host): I want to add a parenthetical to that, which is a pattern I found is that high growth can easily mask problems. Like…
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Yes, yes, yeah.
Morgan Friedman (Host): When things are going wrong, you start digging, trying to find out what’s wrong, and you search, and if you’re smart, you’re seeing the problems. But when things are growing, you’re making so much money, you’re not paying attention to where things are going wrong, so it’s easier for issues like what you’re getting at to lurk below the surface.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): The weird part is that I did see the issue. I’ve seen them and I have dozens of recorded calls of these people of leadership where I go in and I say, “Guys, what are you doing? It is 40 percent into the project. Where is 40 percent of the work? Where is it? I want to see it. We spent 40 percent of the money. Where is it?”
Right? Well, this happened and that happened, but we’ll catch up. We’ll hire another person and so on. I’m like, no. No, the answer is not more. The answer is not spending more. Throwing more money at it won’t solve the problem. Actually doing management, actually figuring out what’s the issue. That is what you do.
And I would tell them over and over again, and I would work with them on it and it wouldn’t happen. It just wouldn’t happen at one point. I had to have by-daily calls every other day. I would have calls with our Chief of Operations telling her this is not okay. Look at what’s going on, this entire division is going to crap, right?
And we’re not doing anything about it. You should be responsible for profitability. Yet, I gave you a company that was profitable month to month. And now, the company is making 150 grand a month and you’re spending a quarter million a month.
What are we doing? This makes no sense, right? And so, I was having those conversations with her, but it wasn’t working because she was being lied to just as well as I was, right?
And we were both telling this person that this doesn’t make sense. This needs to be different and so on and so forth. Nothing would happen. So again, we’ve taken our lessons. We now know how those people are. Doesn’t make it any less bothersome. So we lost so many good relationships. We failed on so many projects.
It was crazy because the clients were telling us, guys, you’re not doing this, this, this. I would tell them like, hey, the client is saying that we’re not doing these three things, what’s going on?
And then this narcissist will come and they would say, well, no, they’re asking for changes. And they would show me one paragraph of one email they sent six weeks ago, which isn’t a real change.
It’s just like something that they would say, but I would assume that’s an example because that’s what they say. Like, look at the types of things that they’re sending us. And then I would go to the client and say, well, they’re saying that we’re late because of look at the requests you’re making.
And they’re like, Robert, we’ve sent that six weeks ago. And it was one button to be changed the color of… or something like… something useless, something you could do in half an hour, you know? And so you don’t have a delay on a 5,000 hour project, that you’re making a million dollars on or whatever, for one button to change. That’s unheard of.
That makes no sense. And so, obviously the client was right in this case, right? They’re not always right. I don’t believe that. But in this specific case, and in these cases, the client was right, and they would show me facts about it. And I would go into those facts. This person would just get even more annoyed and say things like, Robert, are we the pawns of the client now?
Do we not, you know, have our own dignity and so on? Like to say that, Hey, it went wrong. We need like, we underestimated whatever. Like, if you underestimated, it’s still your fault because you underestimated. The client didn’t give you the price, you set the price with the client.
You set the deadline with the client. You did everything with the client. If something’s wrong, you need to understand that you’re still at fault, right? And so on and so forth and they couldn’t. They could not understand that they’re at fault, so they would come up like… it would literally… they would not understand.
I don’t know how to explain it. It’s a real mental problem and it’s so weird that, they would get angry at even someone assuming or indirectly saying that they are at fault, they would get angry at it, and they would just come up with the weirdest types of things.
And they would again make you judge yourself, point fingers at someone else, create drama within the organization, lie to people, get their little fighters, little zealots within their organization, so that they echo their thought process and so on.
It’s like crazy. So, so bad. Long story short, we’ve lost many great relationships with amazing people, millionaires all over the US. And total losses were over 2 million dollars during that period. So, at the end of all of that, what I can say is, I can be grateful that I had 2 million dollars to lose, right? We went through that.
I can be grateful that I’ve had an experience that literally humbled me to the extent that now I know that I do not have all of the answers, that at any point in time, someone like this person or anyone else can take advantage of my goodwill, of my trust in them or, whatever it is.
I can be very grateful that I still have friends that were alongside me during those periods. I can now see that even people, that seem to have good intentions, will double cross you the second that they believe you have any form of malintent. And again, it’s a belief.
What we have been put in a situation where a company that was profitable month to month to month, all of a sudden, a little over a year ago, one and a half years ago, was maybe 700,000 dollars in debt.
Me, that I never took debt in my life, we were in debt because we were paying salaries out of debt. Imagine, because we couldn’t like sustain anymore.
Morgan Friedman (Host): Yeah.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): We had more overhead than we had income. So, it was unsustainable. And obviously I can’t get new projects, if the current projects are going horribly, right? I have no recent case studies.
The people that I have right now are yelling at us. I can’t use them as references, right? When I close new deals and so on. And so it’s just stops almost all sales. It’s just so bad, right? And you can’t like now… you as a salesperson, are scared to bring on new clients because, you know they’ll have a shitty experience.
So you don’t want to do that to them, right? Like you… it pushes you from closing deals as well.
Morgan Friedman (Host): These are all insightful observations, I love it. Question, so you hired this Picasso of bullshit, things were going wrong, but because he’s a Picasso of bullshit, at first you didn’t realize it was him.
What happened… that made you put the pieces together and realize, okay, actually the psycho, he’s the psychopath and that’s the core issue and how do you realize it and how do you solve it?
Robert Indries (Interviewee): So a few things. Number one, I was pinging my people in my organization randomly, at random. Because I would randomly check up on stuff, ask them how they are and so on and so forth.
It’s my company. I own 100 percent of it. I have the right to have any conversation with any person in any organ… any part of the organization. So, I would just do that and I would notice balls being dropped in his division and in sometimes other divisions because of those conversations.
And then I would bring it up in leadership conversations that we would have once a week. And it’s like, Robert, why are you talking to that person that he’s under my management? Like, yes.
And obviously you didn’t do what you said you were going to do because they had no idea. Then well, if I didn’t, then that means they’re busy with something else, and I decided to strategically wait until them, blah, blah, blah, like crazy, like you couldn’t believe it.
And they literally pushed me out of the org. Like they literally said, Robert, you’re the owner, you’re not an executive, let us be the executives, the C-level to manage everything. And understand that your way is not the only way to do business. It’s like, I couldn’t disagree with anything, you know, like, it’s just so good.
It was just everything he would say was so good. But then, at one point I realized the principle is wrong. What do you mean me as the owner of the company cannot have a conversation with anyone I want in the organization at any point in time? I own this. I own this entire thing. If I want to fire someone, I can, right?
I’m not saying I will. I’m not saying I’m just going to use my authority to change stuff. But I am saying that if I reach out to someone and I ask, what do you feel is wrong in the organization right now? And they say, well, I never get to talk to my manager. I’m like, what do you mean? You should have monthly calls, monthly PDPs with your manager.
Oh, I haven’t had one of those in four months. What? You haven’t had the PDP in four months? And then this is actual conversations that I was having, right? With these individuals… and then I would bring it up, I was like, they didn’t have PDPs. And they would tell me, well, I was busy with something else. Yes, in four months?
You didn’t have time for months? You didn’t talk to them once? Well, you don’t, Robert. Times have changed. People don’t want you to talk to them all the time anymore. It’s not all the time. What are you talking about? It’s once a month to see, to get…
Morgan Friedman (Host): Yeah.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Their feedback and for you to give them feedback. Well, I have to…
Morgan Friedman (Host): Every time of the year.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Give them, they’re doing great. Then, you’re missing the entire point of the PDP. It’s a per Professional Development Plan, which means that you say, what else do you want in your career? Where do you want to go? And so on and so forth. So many useless conversation. You would not blink, your neurons would slowly die off. I kid you not.
Like I lost at least a thousand neurons during those conversations. Because I could not like… my brain was firing, like crazy, like on all cylinders. Just to understand the aberrations that were coming out of this person’s mouth. Like completely nonsensical. And so, I realized after so much factual data, that it can’t be all wrong.
Like this… not it cannot be that everything is wrong in the organization, right? It just can’t. And so we… I realized it’s him. I realized he was talking… one… it’s telling one story to this person and having a completely different conversation with this other person. Just… it would just go on and on and on everywhere in the org.
I realized he wasn’t hopping on calls with anyone. I’d realized he did not have performance management in place on any of the projects. I would realize he wasn’t talking to the project managers. Crazy. Crazy like… just horrible.
Like I would start looking into everything, it would be just so bad, like you couldn’t believe it. And it really is a cancer. The person really was a cancer spreading in the entire organization. I could not believe it, it was so bad.
And then again, by the end of it, in the last few months, they’re stealing clients from us. They’re stealing, what’s it called? Prospects leads from us.
They’re stealing, what’s it called, employees from us, right? Just taking them, which all illegal…
Morgan Friedman (Host): Wow.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Based on their contract. They cannot work with our staff outside of our organization. They cannot work with our clients or prospects and so on and so forth. All of these illegal things, they would be doing.
Morgan Friedman (Host): Oh, fascinating. So question, in retrospect…
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Yes.
Morgan Friedman (Host): What are signs like… rethinking before you hired him? Were there any signs that you didn’t realize at the time, but now in retrospect, you guys, oh, that’s a red flag. So that for future people, you look out for different signs pre-hiring?
Robert Indries (Interviewee): So, the red flags are… weren’t the problem. I was seeing them, I was raising them, I raised at least 100 red flags during the point in which they were hired. The issue was my firmness in insisting change, insisting that they… a positive change is to occur now, right now. I don’t care how you’ve done things in other companies.
This is the way we do things here. If you do not agree, you’re free to leave. It’s a free country. It’s a free globe. You can find employment elsewhere. I can find someone that agrees with our way of doing things. You can call that authoritative. You can call that whatever it is. However, I now am a firm believer that this is my company.
My culture, my way of doing things and if you do not agree, I’m not saying I need yes people in the company. I’m saying that if you do not agree, you still need to do it my way and come up with improvement. How can this be factually better? Not just different. Different isn’t better, right? If you can prove that your way is factually better than mine, again, KPIs.
KPIs that matter. Not that people don’t want to spend time on calls, and we can… they can use more of that time to work, blah, blah, blah. No, no, no, no, no. Because at the end of the day, you still have no pulse on the organization. One call, once a month is more than reasonable to discuss how someone’s feeling, what’s going on in their life, what’s relevant?
What… when do they want a vacation? They can tell you on those calls, right? You can give them feedback. Again, they can give you… they can ask any stupid questions that they have, you can ask your stupid questions. Just literally, just converse, right? It’s not a lot at all to have that.
And that there’s a reason why we have this rule is because everyone’s remote. Everyone’s digital. We have employees across 14 different time zones, right? You cannot possibly speak to everyone every single week, right?
So that’s why we say, okay, let’s have at least monthly PDPs with them. And then on the weekly, we can have group huddles where everyone says, this is what I’ve said I’m going to do this week.
This is what I’ve actually done. This is my plan for next week. Very simple, very easy. Everyone spends, you know, whatever, half an hour to an hour on it. Depends on how many people there are and that’s it.
The rest of the time is work, you know? And so don’t tell me that one hour a week is going to affect them negatively in any way, because it’s not, right?
That’s the reality. It’s just builds on that culture, right? So…
Morgan Friedman (Host): I think.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Alright.
Morgan Friedman (Host): I think a way of reframing, that the broader version of that point, is the importance of following your instinct.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Yes.
Morgan Friedman (Host): Which is, these guys made you question your instincts, so even when you smelled things were wrong, you… people have instincts for a reason, and people’s instincts…
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Yeah.
Morgan Friedman (Host): Tend to be good.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Yeah, yeah, yeah. Many times, yeah. That little angel whispering things in your…
Morgan Friedman (Host): Yes.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Ear. They know what they’re talking about and it’s your subconscious just telling you that something’s fishy. Something’s not right, right? Even when you have a conversation with someone and they say certain things, you end the call and something wasn’t right.
And then what I recommend, if you’re a manager and owner, write down the things that you feel are fishy, do journaling, and then have another conversation with them on those specific things or check yourself, right?
So I used to have a lot of control keys everywhere. And so they basically pushed me out, to say, you can’t do this. You can’t do that.
I will never allow myself to be pushed out of my own organization ever again. I think that’s the dumbest thing I’ve allowed myself. That… if there was one dumb thing that I’ve done, it’s allowing myself to be cast out of my own company.
That was horrible. I… the only reason why I did it is because I said, maybe this is how true freedom from an executive role looks like, right?
Because, I’ve always experienced freedom to the extent that I didn’t need to do the work itself. Like, I’ve experienced that for almost a decade now, because I’ve always had people to do work. Because again, our companies were growing and growing and growing, right? We have eight companies on in our portfolio right now, right?
Across 19 different countries were doing operations. So, at the end of the day, I made it in many regards, right? I don’t need to do work anymore. I just… I can be paid every single month. However, I love at one point or another to just… check in, let me check this, let me check that, let me check this.
It’s called Inspecting Your Expectation. You have certain expectations that things are going in a certain way and then you inspect those expectations. It’s a very normal thing to do. It has nothing to do with your trust of the other person.
This has everything to do with you checking if this is going well, and that’s it. You check. You as the owner, as the manager, as the director, as the VP, whatever. You check, it is your duty to check, right? Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Morgan Friedman (Host): There’s a famous saying in the US that’s usually attributed to Ronald Reagan, which is, he said, “Trust, but verify.”
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Trust, but verify. Yes, exactly. I trust that you’re doing good. I still want to check. Nothing… no problem with that, whatsoever. If anyone wants to guilt trip you from checking work, that’s a red flag.
Immediately. Immediately, if someone’s guilt tripping you for checking your own company or your own team, that’s a red flag. Do not allow it and tell them immediately. If you ever say this again, we’re going to have a very serious conversation about your future within this organization. Because you need to understand that I’m going to check no matter how much I trust you.
I can trust you with my children… to take care of my children. I will still check up on my children. It doesn’t matter how much I trust you. It has nothing to do with my trust in you.
Morgan Friedman (Host): By the way, I think that guilt tripping in general, is a red flag.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Yes. Yes. Exactly, yes.
Morgan Friedman (Host): Not just for this, like in friendships and…
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Yeah.
Morgan Friedman (Host): Normal life… people that are guilt tripping you should like… it’s basically a very emotionally immature attitude.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Yes, it is.
Morgan Friedman (Host): Emotional immature…
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Emotional immature manipulation.
Morgan Friedman (Host): Exactly.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Right, so you hould be very careful and you should set expectations with those people. I will not tolerate this. I will not tolerate you guilt tripping me. I told you why I can’t be there. If you give me better reasons to be there than to do this or whatever, I don’t know, something.
Then okay, fine. That’s fine. Like for example, right now, not long ago, I had to go to the UK because we had some assets for sale and they were being sold. So I went to make sure everything goes well. Obviously, you do not need to be there, right? To… for an asset sale to go well.
However, it’s perfectly reasonable to go there and make sure when… especially where you’re talking six, seven figures, you don’t want to… you don’t want anything wrong there. You don’t want any legal troubles. You don’t want anything.
So I went to make sure that the deal goes well. So I went there. So, at the same time, my wife is in a place right now where she feels that she wants me close, right? However, it just so happened that the period was the same, right?
This… like I had to go now when this happened, she didn’t guilt trip me for a second, not even for a second, not even one second. She made me…
Morgan Friedman (Host): You have a good wife.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Feel good. Right? It’s an amazing… she’s an amazing wife, yes. She understood perfectly why I need to go. She agrees that it’s for the betterment of the family that I go, make sure there are no legal issues, and we collect all of that cash, right? I went, we collected the cash, I came back home, we just hugged one another to death, right?
We just loved it, we missed one another, it was great, right? And now we’re wealthier because of it, right? It just took me a week, everything was fine, and then now, I’m back.
So, it’s something that some people do, because that’s how they are raised, they’re… they have issues emotionally, mentally, baggage, anything, you know, like that, and then they are taking that out on you.
So, that doesn’t mean you can’t be friends with them. Again, I learned how to spot them, number one, and two, how to live with them or work with them, right? I just understand that they cannot take blame, right?
And so the only thing I can do is, be factual, be even more factual than I normally am, be even more logical than I normally am.
And if they hate me for it, so be it. They don’t need to be… they don’t need to stay in my life. They don’t need to stay in my company. If they hate me for being factual, that’s their problem. I don’t mind hate anymore. I used to mind people hating me. Interestingly enough, as a leader, you don’t want people to hate you.
You don’t want everyone to like you and that’s such a black hole. I kid you not. It’s such a black hole of compromises on your values of not sticking to the principles. You should stick to and so on and so. This, wanting people to like you because you’re their leader and you believe, you should like me if we are to work together, is so wrong.
So crazy wrong. Now, I don’t care if people hate me, I kid you not. I was on a podcast, last thing I’m going to say… I was on a podcast in which the guy made me tell my life story, as long as like many podcasts do and so on. As I go through that…
Morgan Friedman (Host): Opposite of Client Horror Stories.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Yes, opposite. Exactly. So, they told me to go through that and so on and so forth. And so, part of that story is like, how, like, where are you right now, right? So we recently passed 10 million dollars in revenue and so on. And so we’re in a good place. And so, he asked a very good question. The host, he said, “Robert, many people listening to this are not there yet.”
Right? There may be either even still poor or just you know, trying to figure stuff out at a smaller level in their business and so on and so forth. They might say things like, “Oh, it’s easy for you, Robert.”
Right? You’re there, you’re whatever. And so on, you can give this advice, but I’m here doing the work and I don’t have your money or your connections or whatever.
And what I said is, those people will decide one or two things. They will either decide to hate me, like envy and whatever, or they will decide to appreciate me, right? For until this point in time, like how much I’ve done, right?
And so whether they have to appreciate me or hate me, whatever energy takes them to become a me, right?
Takes them to do than become decamillionaires themselves, use it. I literally don’t like if you have to hate me, if you need me to be the villain for you to change your life in a way that you become a better version of yourself and you are then an example to anyone else, then you can hate me all you want.
I don’t care, you know? And so, this, I realized that many people need a villain in the story, right? And so anyone that doesn’t know me, can hate me for the things I say very, very bluntly.
Because people tell me, for example, overweight people say, “Oh, I don’t eat a lot.” Maybe you don’t eat a lot, but you eat more than you should if you’re fat. That’s it, it’s just as simple as that, because you can’t be fat on air or on water.
You can only be fat on calories, right? The fatter you get it’s because you eat more calories than you burn. It’s just simple math. So, many people can get incredibly offended if I say that, but I’m an engineer, right?
I only say things factually. Like, I don’t… it’s… I don’t judge how physics works. Physics works the way it does. The laws of nature work the way they do. So, if you burn a thousand five hundred calories a day and you eat 3,000, you’re going to slowly, progressively, get fatter every year. Full stop.
If you eat 1,500 calories and you burn 2,000, you’ll lose weight for the foreseeable future, until you stop losing weight anymore because it’s not feasible for the body to lose any more weight, right? And so, that’s it. Simple math. So, this can offend someone, and they can hate me for it.
Within that hate, if they use that hate to then find some pep, paleo, peleo, whatever diet that they need to go on, like carnivore, I don’t know… and then that diet makes them lose the weight because now they hate me and they want to prove me wrong and then they go on a diet and they start working out and whatever. Which by the way, will basically do the same thing.
They’ll have eat less calories and do more workouts. Doesn’t matter, right? And then they’ll still lose the weight regardless. So, I do think it’s better to love. Obviously, it’s a better emotion, to love someone, to appreciate, to do things of that nature. However, we’re not at the same journey of wisdom than anyone else. So…
Morgan Friedman (Host): This last point of yours, reframed, is that people are motivated by emotions. But sometimes it’s by positive emotions, sometimes by negative emotions.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Yes. Yes. Exactly. Exactly.
Morgan Friedman (Host): And I think this…
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Is the negative emotion, for example.
Morgan Friedman (Host): This is a powerful insight from marketing eyes because you need the negative emotions to first happen, before you set… to be set up for the positive emotions.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. There was an amazing marketing campaign that, Romania did at one point. It was so good. It was genius. So the UK, was scared of Romania going into the EU because then, they believe that Romanians would just flock to the UK, right?
Because it’s so much better to live there, apparently. As by their thoughts, that they thought so.
What Romania did, it was genius. In the UK, not in Romania, in the UK, they started buying ad space in London and in other parts, right? With how amazing life is in Romania compared to life in the UK, right? So for… but they phrased it in a way that is sarcastic. Each one of them was sarcastic, right?
It was used sarcastic humor for it. Something like, it’s always crappy weather in the UK or whatever. Like everyone knows most times it’s bland, it’s…
Morgan Friedman (Host): Right.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Gray skies and so on. And so I’m making this up. I’m sure you can look…
Morgan Friedman (Host): Yeah.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Up the real ones and they’re amazing, but I’m paraphrasing them. One of them might have been something like, yes, like, why would we enjoy bright sunshine and amazing beaches when we can come to the UK.
Right? Something like that. It was so good. I kid you not. And they had like dozens of these plastered everywhere. And at the bottom it was like visit Romania.com.
Something like that. It was so good. I loved it. And so this entire marketing thing is hate me all you want, but my country is prettier.
Like, factually it looks better so it’s just so many things like that we enjoy and it’s because of this injustice many times is like, every like… people in the UK saying, we’re going to vote against you because if we vote for you, you’re going to infest our land because that’s a… they politely said that, like we’re going to infest their land. You’re not that special. Excuse me, right?
Who are you to say things like that or to do things like that, right? It’s just… that’s a form of elitism, right? That’s a form of racism. And so Romania wasn’t having it. And we just… they just plastered those things everywhere. It just… it was such a… such an amazing thing. And they eventually voted for us.
So, it worked, it was good. I don’t know the exact details of this, I just know the marketing principle because I’m partly a marketing person and I just loved it. It was genius.
Morgan Friedman (Host): So, I also think marketing happens at many different levels. So it’s not…
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Yes.
Morgan Friedman (Host): So this is a very obvious , negative example, but it gets deeper, more complex. Like, so the best marketing is you don’t even know what’s marketing. For example, just in the last days, there’s been a lot of controversy in tech circles because the CEO of Open AI, the hottest, LLM AI coming out there was forced out by the board and the world is discussing it now.
There are also some other lenses through which we can view it and talk about it. Like, maybe it was forced out by the board or maybe for the narrative of any company is tied to the narrative of the public figures in the leadership. And sometimes you need this dark moment pushing it out in order… for there to be a comeback that is even bigger and better. And…
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Yeah.
Morgan Friedman (Host): The precedent for this, is with the most valuable company in the world, Apple. Steve Jobs built it from nothing, then he was kicked out by the board and then had this like dark period.
Then he came back, did it happen as we’re taught in the history, or maybe, you need to play with everyone’s emotions and show the world that you’re having a fight and leaving and this, and this, and this in order to keep the world engaged. You need drama engages people.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Yeah, and what’s his name? Arnold Schwarzenegger and his documentary talks about that. He said that within the California City Hall or wherever. They were conducting their business, said they’re all okay with one another. They’re shaking hands. They’re smoking together and they’re happy.
But then when the cameras were rolling, they would fight with one another, they would go into their rooms. They’re just do all of these things. They say it was all bullshit. He said that on the document, it was all like… we all liked one another. We all would agree. The deal was already made by the time the camera guys would show up.
Everything was already signed. Everything was a show. I’m like, oh my god.
Morgan Friedman (Host): That’s hysterical. I didn’t see a documentary. I didn’t hear him saying that. But that’s basically the same point that I’m making.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Yes.
Morgan Friedman (Host): That the show of marketing happens at so many different levels. So it’s not just take out a cool ad.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Yeah, yeah.
Morgan Friedman (Host): It’s the engaging in drama and all these different subtle levels.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): I’ll give just one more example of…
Morgan Friedman (Host): Yeah.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Something that I thought was genius. We have… if people didn’t realize it yet, I was born in Romania. So, I’m a Hungarian, born in Romania. So I have both citizenships. And then, I love Romania because it has like literally everything that you want.
Zero percent income tax, which is the best thing ever. It’s a financial haven in Europe. It has… what’s it called? Mountains, skis, beaches, like everything you want. Amazing infrastructure, amazing healthcare, amazing protection, cleanliness, and so on.
So everything we want is here, that’s why we decided to move here. However, something that’s interesting. We have a chocolate, that’s called Rom, R-O-M. Comes from Romania and it actually has rum in the chocolate because it’s very Romanian to have that.
So, it was a chocolate that has a very specific taste you cannot forget it. If you eat it as a child, you remember the taste forever. And so you had… that was the one chocolate company that we had rum, and then everyone knew it.
And it had the Romanian stripes and so on. At one point, people stopped buying Rom because, Bounty, Snickers, Ferrero Rocher… it’s just like so many options. Toblerone, you have Milka, I don’t know. Just Kinder.
So many options of chocolate now. Like you go to the aisle, there are like a hundred, types of chocolate. And then Rom was one of them. So, compared to when it was one of the five available chocolates or three available chocolates, you had a 33 percent chance to buy Rom.
Now you have a 1 percent chance to buy Rom or maybe even less because everyone loves Bonti or Snickers or whatever it is that they prefer.
Right? And so, they’re going down and down and down until one point they’re in a real issue. So what they did, it was genius. In one long swoop of their packaging, the packaging used to be the Romanian flag on it, right? The Romanian stripes used to be on it.
They changed it, I kid you not, to the US flag. And they… all of them, all… they made thousands and thousands … everywhere in the world. Every… sorry… everywhere where there was Rom in Romania, instead of having the Romanian stripes, they would have the US stripes everywhere. And everyone’s like, where’s Rom? You couldn’t see Rom anymore.
You would just be used to seeing it. And all of a sudden, there’s this, and it says Rom on it, and it’s the US flag. Like, what’s going on? It would say that, oh, we were just thinking you don’t care anymore. What? What? My god. The positive effect that had on that brand, like you could not imagine, it was genius. It was.
Morgan Friedman (Host): That’s a great example.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Wow. It was so, so good. Couldn’t believe it. And now, I sometimes… I just buy Rom, I swear. Every… like once a month, I just buy one. Just so that they don’t go out of business. And I’m sure almost so many people do this. And, they’ve started getting feedback.
They use that to get a lot of feedback from the community, right? On the tastes on… what do they want to see and so on, they started making Rom protein bars. Imagine, because everyone is into protein now, and they want to eat so much protein and blah, blah, blah, right? So, very, very good.
Genius. We have three Roms in our house at any point in time, it’s just very good. Very good stuff.
Morgan Friedman (Host): Love it. Love it. This has been a great episode. I love the stories. I love the dealing with recognizing and dealing psychopath tips and nothing to do with the Client Horror Stories, but the… but these marketing examples at the end were a lot of fun.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Thank you.
Morgan Friedman (Host): As well. Any final thoughts or comments about recognizing or dealing with the psychopath or did you share the key points that you wanted to?
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Something that I shared the key points… something that I want to tell people is if you’re lost at any point in time and you’re really doubting yourself, it pays to speak to people that are on the outside.
To talk to them about facts. If during those periods, I would have talked to people that I know are as good or better than I am, and I would have shared these issues that I’m going with and so on.
They would have echoed the same thoughts that I had. No, you need to put your foot down. You can’t let this keep going on and so on and so forth. I wasn’t having those conversations with people. I could have had them, but I wasn’t having them because I thought it’s maybe temporary.
I’ll figure it out, whatever, things like that. But go to others, message them, email them, talk to them and other entrepreneurs would gladly help you in many of these cases.
Morgan Friedman (Host): That is great advice, Robert. Thank you for coming. Everyone who’s made it to the end. Thank you for listening.
I hope you enjoyed that episode as much as we did. To be continued.
Robert Indries (Interviewee): Bye bye.