The 7 Codes · 52 weeks

Brainwash yourself into a simpler, more profitable business.

One play a week, built on the 7 Codes of Business Brainwash. Real stories, four lessons, an honest chart, a book worth reading, and something you can run this week.

Code 1 — Prepare for Unreasonable Effort

The Hours Nobody Sees Are the Ones That Compound

You're Not Behind. You're Under-Invested in Learning

Be the Dumbest Person in the Room on Purpose

The Question You're Too Proud to Ask Is Costing You Money

Talent Got You Started. Volume Will Finish It

Your Competition Isn't Better. They Just Didn't Stop

The Skill Stack Nobody Can Take From You

Allison Ellsworth had no distribution, so she built the audience first.

I moved to Los Angeles with one acceptance letter—and nowhere lined up to live.

Two ventures ended before Henry Ford began Ford.

A washerwoman on $1.50 a week became America's first self-made female millionaire.

Broke at 65 on a $105 check, Colonel Sanders built KFC anyway.

Edison took Granville Woods to court over the patents. Twice. Edison lost.

Annie Malone trained the woman history remembers instead of her.

Walt Disney went bankrupt, then lost his character to his own distributor.

Three of Milton Hershey's candy companies failed before the fourth built a town.

Edison's first patent failed because it worked too well.

Toyota rejected his parts. A bomb took his factory. Then he built Honda.

James Dyson built 5,126 failures before the one that worked.

The 7 KPIs every business should monitor.

Code 2 — Gamify Your Growth Process

If You Don't Score It, You Won't Do It

Turn Your KPIs Into a Game You Want to Win

Reward the Reps, Not Just the Wins

Build Levels Into Your Business

The Weekly Scoreboard That Runs a Company

Compete With Last Week's Version of You

The Streak Is the Strategy

Ray Kroc was 52 and selling milkshake machines when one order made no sense.

Estée Lauder gave the product away until the world started paying.

They promoted the man Mary Kay Ash trained, at twice her salary.

Truett Cathy gave up one of the busiest days of the week. Every week, forever.

The furniture industry boycotted Ingvar Kamprad. That's why IKEA exists.

W. Clement Stone sold newspapers at six and turned $100 into an insurance company.

By midday nobody had bought a cookie, so Debbi Fields gave them away.

Code 3 — Remove All Distractions

5 Ways You're Overcomplicating Your Business With A.I.

You Don't Have a Time Problem. You Have a Subtraction Problem

Trade Entertainment for Edutainment

The Meeting You Should Have Killed Last Quarter

Your Phone Is Running a Business. It's Just Not Yours

Fewer Offers, More Revenue

The Nights In That Built the Business

Kill Your Best Distraction

Magic Johnson earned about $40 million playing. He became a billionaire owning insurance.

Momofuku Ando was 48, wiped out, and invented instant ramen in a shed.

Every expert told King Gillette the blade couldn't be made. It took him eight years.

Charles Goodyear sold his children's schoolbooks to buy chemicals. It took five years.

Paris panned Coco Chanel's comeback at seventy. American buyers bought it anyway.

Levi Strauss never invented jeans. He knew which one thing to back.

Pitons were about 70% of Yvon Chouinard's income. He walked away.

They told Sakichi Toyoda to stop inventing. He went back to the same loom.

Code 4 — Your Circle Matters Most

Your Circle Is a Business Input, Not a Social Accident

Be in Rooms That Intimidate You

The Mentor You Haven't Asked Yet

The People You Tolerate Become Your Culture

Stop Asking How. Start Asking Who

The Friend Who Costs You a Quarter

Hire for the Room You're Walking Into Next

"Do for self": how a sharecropper's son built farms, banks, and businesses.

Maggie Lena Walker inherited $31.61 — and left behind a bank.

A.G. Gaston sold burials because his people couldn't get insured.

S.B. Fuller started with $25 of soap and manufactured entrepreneurs instead.

A borrowed library made Andrew Carnegie. So he built 2,500 of them.

Booker T. Washington walked 500 miles to a school, then built one from clay.

Berry Gordy borrowed $800 and built the assembly line he'd just quit.

Rose Blumkin had no English and $500. Buffett bought her out on a handshake.

Code 5 — Yes / No Season

Run a Season of No

Then Run a Season of Yes

Delay Is Not Denial

The SM-ME 500: You Are the Investment

The Opportunity You Should Turn Down This Quarter

Pay Yourself First or the Business Never Will

What You Say No To Is Your Real Strategy

When mining died, Michael Intrator kept the machines and changed the customer.

"Why should white guys have all the fun?" Reginald Lewis answered it with $985 million.

Conrad Hilton lost his whole company, then managed the hotels he used to own.