Dan Peña likes to say that most people have “piss-poor habits”. In this clip from his 2016 London Real interview, recorded a year after his famous live event at The Ritz, Brian Rose asks him to name the habits that keep him performing at 70. The answer is a short list, delivered with Peña’s usual subtlety, which is to say none.
Underneath the swearing are three or four ideas that are genuinely useful.
▶ Watch the full episode: Dan Peña – Just F*cking Do It
Habits you don’t think about
Peña says he has had the same habits for about 50 years, and he no longer thinks about them. They’re like brushing his teeth. When he does feel weak, which he says isn’t often, he tells himself off, gets up and does it anyway.
His point is that the habits had to come first. He hasn’t needed to work since his mid-thirties, he says, and if he had tried to build these habits late in life, he doesn’t think he’d still be doing them. One of his goals that year was to train twice a day, every day. He has gyms at home, but says he’d still go if he had to drive.
Choose your peer group on purpose
Good habits are hard to come by, Peña says, but people with good habits to be around are even rarer. He repeats a line he often uses: you are the average of the people you spend the most time with. “Show me your friends now, and I’ll show you your future.”
Most people, he says, pick their company by default: whoever is going to the pub after work. His alternative is to be deliberate. If there are two people at work you look up to, more successful than you, invite them for a drink yourself.
No tacit approval
The habit he seems proudest of is refusing to give “tacit approval”. If someone says something he thinks is nonsense and he stays quiet, or even nods, they will walk away thinking he agreed. So he goes out of his way to say so, every time. In his view that keeps the right people around you, and it matters more the more people follow you.
He contrasts this with what he calls the personal development game, where many teachers avoid challenging people because they have something to sell, then an upsell, then another. He says he used to run his seminars for free, but people didn’t engage until they had skin in the game.
Sam Walton’s sundown rule
His next habit is borrowed from Walmart founder Sam Walton: respond to everything before the end of the day. If Peña can’t answer properly, an assistant replies to say the message was received and when he will get back. That’s why, he says, people sometimes get emails from him at 1:30 in the morning.
He tells a story about a senior banker in the City of London who took 69 days to answer a yes-or-no question. Peña got his dinner eventually, and by his own account gave the man a very hard time in front of his staff, with his wife Sally kicking him under the table.
What to take from it
Peña’s delivery is extreme, but the habits are simple and practical: make daily exercise non-negotiable, choose your company deliberately, speak up when you disagree, and close every loop before the day ends. None of them require a castle.
Who is Dan Peña?
Dan Peña is an American businessman and mentor who built the oil and gas company Great Western Resources in the 1980s. He created the Quantum Leap Advantage (QLA) coaching method and for years taught it at seminars at Guthrie Castle in Scotland. His relationship with Brian Rose is the subject of the documentary The 50 Billion Dollar Man.
In this full 2016 episode, Peña returns to London Real a year after his live show at The Ritz to talk about fear, success and doing the work. You can also watch another clip from the same interview: Dan Peña – “Donald Trump Is Gonna Rock The Planet”.
See everything Dan Peña has done with London Real on his guest page: Dan Peña on London Real.
More on London Real
Transcript
Transcript: Dan Peña – 50 Billion Dollar Habits: Peer Groups, No Tacit Approval And The Sundown Rule
0:00 Dan Peña: Most people just have piss-poor habits. I’ve had these same habits for about 50 years now, and I don’t even think about it. It’s just like brushing my teeth or taking a shower. I just do it. In one of the other interviews I did with you, I said that when I do feel wimpish, which isn’t too often, I just say, “What’s wrong with you, you c*nt? Come on,” and I go out and do it. And I’ve done that my entire life.
0:33 Dan Peña: And I know that if I’d had to build up these habits 20, 30 years ago, at age 70 I certainly wouldn’t be doing this, because I haven’t had to work since my mid-thirties. So for half my life I’ve had the wherewithal not to have to work. And a lot of people, a lot of Realers, ask me: what motivates you to get up in the morning? One of my goals this year was to go to the gym twice a day. Not once a day, twice a day. I don’t go to a gym per se, I have gyms in my home, so I’ve got to walk 50 feet. But if I had to get in a car, I’d still do it, because working out is part of my lifestyle.
1:26 Dan Peña: Good habits are hard to come by, but what’s even harder to come by is people with good habits that you can be around. That’s even tougher.
1:35 Brian Rose: Why is that?
1:36 Dan Peña: Because, as I’ve said before, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Growing up, that’s normally your dad and your mum. But show me your friends now, and I’ll show you your future. Most of the guys and gals on the planet go out and have a drink after work. You don’t say, “Well, he’s a high performer, she’s a pisshead.” That’s not how you pick. They get in the lift, go downstairs, and go to the pub.
2:27 Dan Peña: But if you think about it: well, I really wouldn’t mind having a drink with those two people over there. So why don’t you initiate the request and say, why don’t the three of us go and have a drink? Let’s say they’re your supervisors, people you look up to, more successful than you, as opposed to the way you do it now. People don’t spend enough time selecting their peer group.
2:46 Brian Rose: Because they go to default. What are some of your other good habits? You said working out is one. Pick three or four that highlight you as a high performer.
2:55 Dan Peña: No tacit approval.
2:57 Brian Rose: What does that mean?
2:58 Dan Peña: Tacit approval is: you say some bullsh*t, and I don’t say anything. I’m quiet, or I might even, consciously or unconsciously, nod my head. That’s giving you tacit approval, that I either agree or don’t disagree enough to open my f*cking mouth. So now you go away and tell the other Realers, “Well, he agrees with that.” So I go out of my way to make sure that if I hear bullsh*t, I tell them it’s bullsh*t. That’s a good habit in life, because it keeps you with the right people.
3:44 Brian Rose: Because your message is out loud and clear.
3:46 Dan Peña: Correct. And especially in my position, because a lot of people follow me, it’s even more important. But most of the people in what I call the personal development game do just the opposite, because they want to sell them something. After they’ve sold them something, Brian, they’ve got an upsell, and another upsell. I have no f*cking upsells. I give everything away.
4:17 Dan Peña: The only place I make people put skin in the game: if you want my free mentoring programme at the end of the seminar, you’ve got to pay to get to the seminar. As I told the BBC earlier, with the greatest respect, I used to do the f*cking seminars for free. I’d put seven, eight, nine hundred people in a goddamn hotel auditorium at the airport, and it didn’t work. They didn’t engage, they didn’t get in the game. Now they pay roughly 20 grand. Sterling. Because you get them in the game.
4:58 Brian Rose: No tacit approval. Give me a couple more.
5:00 Dan Peña: Well, you already said working out. No tacit approval. And Sam Walton’s sundown rule. Walton, until he got sick, cleared everything on his desk every day before he left the office: every message, every letter that came in. If nothing more, he had one of his assistants get back and say, “Brian, Mr Walton saw your message, and he’ll get back to you by the day after tomorrow at least.” He’s saying he got the message but didn’t have time to answer it right now. So I clear my desk every day.
5:45 Dan Peña: I normally go to sleep between 11:30 and 12, but on the days people get emails from me at 1:30, 1:45 or 2, that’s because I was implementing Sam Walton’s sundown rule. That’s a great habit.
6:01 Brian Rose: Sounds like you over-communicate. You don’t give tacit approval, and you get back to people quickly.
6:07 Dan Peña: I can’t begin to tell you how many times people tell me they couldn’t believe how quickly I got back to them. A lot of years ago, one of the big guys who runs one of the big banks here in the City took 69 days to get back to me. God, Allah, Buddha, the President of the f*cking United States shouldn’t have to take 69 days to reply, and it was a yes or no. It wasn’t something he had to think through.
6:47 Dan Peña: I jumped on that c*cksucker. Sally and I took him out to dinner, which took me another four or five months to get, and I busted his balls the whole f*cking time. He wanted to bring two or three people with him. I said, why? He said it would be a learning experience for them. I said I’m going to be myself, so you can bring as many as you want. And I ripped him a new one, and the people around him had never seen anyone do that to him. My shin was all black and blue, because that was Sally kicking me under the table. And then I made him pay for dinner. He brought three of his stooges anyway.
7:56 Brian Rose: So over-communicate, and other people should too.
7:58 Dan Peña: Here’s a rough example, and this isn’t anything proprietary, of what one of your communications should look like. It’s just all caps and red.
