My new book, The Price of Becoming, is a USA Today, LA Times, Success Magazine, and Publishers Weekly Best-Seller! I think you’ll find it useful.

Anthony Pompliano is the founder and CEO of Silvia, a publicly traded AI financial assistant for independent investors, and he runs a group of companies that also includes media, events, and research businesses. Before that, he served as a sergeant in the U.S. Army in Iraq and ran growth teams at Facebook. His new book, How to Live an Extraordinary Life, Volume Two, is a collection of 50 letters to his children on wisdom, wealth, health, and happiness.

You can also WATCH our conversation on YouTube.

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Key Learnings

Relentless means going after what you want whether or not it feels like progress. And doing it with enough enthusiasm that other people want to join you. That’s hardest when things are going badly, which is exactly when leaders have to do it.

Enthusiasm can close a gap. People want to be around momentum. It also dissipates the further it travels, so the center has to run hot enough that customers and partners still feel it.

Leadership is a daily action. Without someone holding the standard every day, people drift back to the median.

The real test is whether you create other leaders. Pomp tells his CEOs to be their own version of what he’s been for them, so the standard multiplies instead of diluting.

Bill Walsh’s first call at the 49ers went to the front desk. Not the players or the coaches. He listened to how the receptionist answered, because that’s the organization’s first contact with the world, and he kept spot-checking it for years.

Focus is also deciding where your attention doesn’t go. “The score takes care of itself” keeps a whole team on the inputs instead of the scoreboard.

What you do in private eventually shows up in public. Outputs can be spun. You can measure a bench press a dozen ways. Did you work out today is a yes or a no. Track that, and the outputs follow.

Extreme clarity, then perfect execution. From running growth teams at Facebook: define the test so everyone knows what success looks like, then run it flawlessly, so a failure tells you the idea was wrong and not the test. That’s how learning compounds.

The world treats you how you treat yourself. “If you treat yourself like a sergeant, you eventually become a sergeant.” Want to be a millionaire? Most of them aren’t flashing Ferraris. They build something of value and keep good money habits.

In a room of people bigger than you, take the motivation and leave the envy. The person with the big company did years of private work you never saw.

Walk in as a student, not a peer pretending it’s going great. Better yet, offer a swap: you have information I don’t, and I have some you don’t. That’s what makes people want the next conversation.

Same person, same school, different intention. Before deploying to Iraq, Pomp had a 1.8 GPA and didn’t know where the library was. At 20, between shifts, he read Rich Dad Poor Dad, The Richest Man in Babylon, and Think and Grow Rich. He came back so focused you wouldn’t recognize him.

Find the thing that reminds you not to settle. For Pomp, it’s Zillow email alerts for $50 million Manhattan homes he has no interest in buying. Three minutes, then back to work. Yours can be anything. Find it.

Know yourself well enough to have a list, then live it. No one-on-ones, no executive assistant, no alcohol, and he leaves every dinner early to get home to his family. His friends just say that’s his thing. Living this way usually earns respect, not judgment.

Produce more than you consume. Katherine Boyle’s production principle, written for her kids’ devices and then applied to herself. Pomp sent it to his wife, who now asks whether he’s producing or consuming every time he picks up his phone. Same screen time, better mix.

“Success is being excited to go to work and being excited to come home.” Will Ahmed’s line, now Pomp’s definition. It has to be both. Happy at home and miserable at work, or the reverse, isn’t success.

Being comfortable with uncertainty is a superpower. Experience is what makes you calm in it. When fear sells the market off, the same asset from four weeks ago is just cheaper. Go shop the garage sale.

His job comes down to three things. The right people in the right seats who know where you’re going. Knowing each business’s competitive advantage and pressing it. Then firefighting.

“We got a problem” should excite you. He wants every problem brought to him, because solving it unblocks the team. Usually it takes one phone call.

Ask customers to be your chief complaining officer. Tell people they’re allowed to complain and they show up with a list. That list is exactly what you need to get better.

Sales is energy plus facts, delivered like a human. Not mechanical call volume, not a slick suit. Here’s your problem, here’s how we solve it, and we’ll structure it so you can fire us if we don’t deliver.

Judge a sale by whether you’re still working together in five years. Pomp tells new contacts he could probably charm them into buying almost anything, and that isn’t the goal. Delivering is.

The wrong contract. A big client signed the wrong version. It wasn’t worse for Pomp, and may have been better. He called the CMO anyway, sent the right one, and offered to take the blame internally. A week into the deal, trust went through the roof.

Pomp’s champagne moment a year from now: something with his kids. His daughter ran a 50-yard kids’ race in Central Park, focused like it was the Olympics, then grinned over a 30-cent ribbon. Given the choice between 1% of his professional goals and that look, he’d shut every business down.

Action

  • Pick one result you want this quarter. Write down the daily actions that actually drive it, and measure those instead of the result.
  • If you enjoyed this conversation with Anthony Pompliano, please check out episode #464 with Polina Pompliano, Profiles Of The World’s Greatest Performers, Makers vs. Managers, & Building Trust Through Consistency

Podcast Chapters
00:00 Meet Anthony Pompliano

01:21 What Relentless Means

02:28 Enthusiasm Closes the Gap

04:18 Leadership Is a Daily Action

06:09 Bill Walsh Called the Front Desk

08:39 Inputs Are Zero or One

10:21 Extreme Clarity, Perfect Execution

11:44 The World Treats You How You Treat Yourself

14:41 Leave the Envy at the Door

17:11 Reading in Iraq

21:01 The Zillow Alerts

24:53 100% Hardcore You

27:33 Produce More Than You Consume

29:42 Excited to Go to Work, Excited to Come Home

31:51 Uncertainty Is an Advantage

34:26 His Three Jobs

37:34 Building an Ecosystem

41:23 Sales Is Two Humans Hanging Out

50:00 The Champagne Question

53:43 EOPC