#151: Elon vs Trump: Leadership Lessons From a Twitter War // Next Level Pros Podcast

we are diving into the explosive feud between Elon Musk and Donald Trump on X.

What can two of the most influential and controversial leaders teach us about handling disagreements, managing egos, and building a culture of trust?

Let's unpack the drama and find the golden nuggets of leadership wisdom hidden in the cave.

So it has been a wild one over the last week with Trump and Elon.

You got two of the world's most influential people.

I mean, richest man of the world, president of the United States, entrepreneur,

crazy man, a little

genius.

Some might say the orange man.

Possibly an alien.

Possibly an alien.

Possibly a time traveler.

Yeah.

If you follow many of the, you know, crazy conspiracy theories or whatnot.

I'm in on it.

Dude, there's a crazy one.

There's like a Baron Trump from like the 1980s,

1800s or something crazy.

But obviously, so there's been some madness going on, right?

These guys have been completely aligned.

You had Elon that was backing the whole campaign, right?

I mean, literally paying people to pledge their allegiance to going and voting for Trump, right?

Giving away million-dollar prizes in Pennsylvania and different things.

The Joe Rogan endorsement was arguably one of the biggest game changers of the campaign.

In the final hour.

Yeah.

And really all of it was manufactured by Elon.

Elon, like, he brought like just that

new age level of.

He threw his brand behind it fully and embraced all the damage and pain and money loss and there was consequences.

And he was even interviewed about it.

It's like, dude, what happens if this doesn't work?

And he's like, I'm effed.

And so, you know, fast forward, seven months later, eight months later, And here we are.

These two Titans are freaking battling out on X.

And the question is, like, is it real?

Is it not real?

I don't know.

But, like, there's some crazy stuff happening.

I mean, you got literally

Elon that's freaking saying, like, this budget bill sucks.

And Trump's like, yeah, screw you.

And Elon's like, you're on the Epstein list.

And

he's just like, well, what just happened?

Did the whole internet just burn down?

And so, you know, which makes you wonder, one, is it real?

Two, is this the proper way to go about it from leadership?

And I think that's like one of the important facts or things that we want to talk about in this episode is just like, how do we handle disagreements in leadership?

And so I know you were, you were talking about before the, the, the show that you have some, some very like important ways and methodologies that you typically, by the way, for those that are, uh, have uh been religious watchers of the show, got two of the homies on, both new additions to the next level community.

You guys have seen Trent.

Trent was on a previous episode, uh, but now we have Mr.

Alex Martinson just joining.

Woo-hoo!

Let's go.

So, Alex, dude, give us a fresh take, baby.

Fresh take is this.

I think there's like quite a leap from, hey, I disagree on policy and spending, which I think that was the refreshing part because that was an indication that, oh, he's not just kissing the ring.

He's not a yes man.

And that, to anyone who runs any type of organization, you recognize is healthy.

Dude, but you know, you say it's healthy, but so many organizations run without that.

Oh, 100%.

Right?

It's just like one guy, everybody's like, yes, man, whatever you say, do.

Totally.

Yeah.

And, you know, that guy that has the yes men around him,

it says a lot about him if he lets that continue and likes that, because that's kind of a low-level, kind of a...

you know, you're not super conscious if you just allow that to happen.

Because if you're really more self-aware and more of an intelligent leader, I would say you recognize that that is actually an issue.

You should have an inner circle that, you know, there's enough trust there underneath these relationships where you actually

you don't just tolerate dissent, you invite it and you see the value in it.

Okay.

So because Trump is such a powerful force and it seems like those that are in his corner just kind of kiss the ring and bow down in a way.

I found it personally, and I think others did as well, like refreshing that, oh, okay, here's Elon.

outwardly disagreeing.

Like, hey, this is not what we're about.

He's just coming off this whole Doge thing.

We're trimming down.

Okay.

And, you know, one of my favorite memes that freaking Elon posted over the weekend, we've got the bus, right?

The bus is trying to cross the tracks.

He's like doge making cuts.

And then the freaking train hitting the bus, and it's like the new beautiful, big, beautiful bill.

So, but the leap from, hey, this is refreshing, maybe an example of like kind of how dissent should work in an inner circle to, and this is the big thing that is where I think everything changes.

He is literally re posting people saying Trump ought to be impeached, and Elon is reposting and saying yes.

Okay.

that

huge leap.

Okay.

Then you go with kind of the almost like

Epstein list.

It's just like, what is happening here?

So, you know, my take is what's happening here is it's evidence that at any level of leadership, status, whatever, these are human beings with egos.

And I have a lot of thoughts around ego.

We won't like dump all my thoughts, but it's just, you know, your ego is that part of you that is responsible for the pain and suffering in your life.

Like if it runs away, the ego is the thing that gets so fired up.

The ego has to be the thing that is like enraged enough to post something that, you know, I think is like unhinged.

You know, so I'm on team real quick.

Which really makes you draw a conclusion.

Either one, there's some crazy mass ego going on or two, this has to be a setup, right?

And we won't go really into this setup, but it's like, dude, this is so unhinged, it makes you have to like question like, is this real?

Yeah.

But let's pretend it for a second that it is 100% real.

Because it is real.

I'm on Team Real.

You're Team Real.

I'm Team.

Conspiracy Theory,

quite possibly a setup.

In fact, just because of some of the most recent tweets, but we'll push past that.

So yeah, talk more about the ego.

Hey guys, it's Chris.

Hey, a lot of you leave comments asking for help.

Do me a real quick favor.

Shoot me a text at 509-374-7554.

That's 509-374-7554.

Shoot me a text.

I'll answer and help you with whatever you need.

Don't worry, I got you back.

Let's go back to the show, baby.

Well, so, you know, when we, just the word ego carries a lot of people think they know what that means.

Meaning, it's commonly used as kind of a synonym of just cocky, right?

You say someone has an ego.

It's the same thing as saying he's a cocky person.

I had a coach that I worked with a few years ago that he really like remodeled my whole understanding of ego, which is kind of like this old philosophical and like psychoanalytical concept.

I mean it can be really deep, okay?

But he basically said, look, think of it like this.

Every person is a combination of like two entities.

You have your true self, right?

Which is like your real essence.

It's the part of you that you actually like being with.

It's the part of you that the people in your life enjoy.

It's probably the reason anything good and beautiful in your life exists because, you know, this kind of true version of you, you know, your real essence is responsible for your strong characteristics.

Yeah.

Your ego plays a role in that.

It's not all bad, but generally you could say ego is more often responsible for the pain and the suffering in your life because your ego is this like guard dog that you've had since you were about two or three years old.

And his self-appointed job is to make you feel safe and okay.

And so if it detects anything in the environment that seems to suggest that other people don't see you as okay or right or smart, the ego, like a guard dog, starts to bark.

It starts to get engaged.

And

if you're not conscious that that's what's happening, you can allow this barking dog to actually cause a lot of pain and set you back.

And so it's about becoming aware that, okay, I have an ego.

I am not my ego.

I live with my ego.

And so that little bit of separation there.

And so, you know, if it weren't for our ego, there's a lot of achievement and things we have gunned for and ran for and things that we're doing now that maybe we wouldn't have done.

Like there is value to this side of us that has this kind of like achieving, chasing, competitive drive.

But it's more about, you know, I think at a high level, you start to recognize your ego so that you can on and off switch that thing.

You know, it's like sled dogs.

They're powerful to pull you through the snow, but hey, if you don't know what you're doing, those things are wild animals.

If they get hungry enough, they might turn on you and eat you for lunch.

You know, it's that kind of a thing.

So I just think that's an example where we saw, hey, egos can come in and make a real mess.

And I think it's really important for business owners, leaders of any organization, parents, just to understand.

And this is kind of the point I want to make, that when your ego is engaged,

that guard dog is barking and freaking out.

I have a term for this.

It's like you are now on the dark train.

And so I think a really effective thing for any partnership, like here's a little takeaway, something you could actually try, is to just introduce that language into your partnership.

And if you want to use dark train, use that.

You can say, hey, I'm on the dark train right now.

And you can even say, hey, look, you know, Chris, if we had a disagreement and I felt my ego getting engaged, high level would be to say, hey, I got to turn myself in.

My ego is engaged right now.

I'm on the dark train.

And that could be enough said to where you go, cool, got it.

That's, it's a little code for we are not talking right now.

Well, it's so interesting.

It's going to be because two dark trains in a room, nothing good's happening.

Absolutely.

So, I mean, this is like the basis of a strong culture, right?

If you want to, if you want to build a basis of a strong culture, one, common language.

Yep.

Two is frameworks to be able to work through different type of situations.

And so like just having the common language of the dark train immediately triggers a response from the other party that says, oh, I understand you.

Yes.

I know where you're at and I know how to handle this situation.

Versus I think a lot of times when we're trying to grow up as leaders, we expect people to only be strong and not weak.

And so we only want to work with their strengths and not their weaknesses, where real leaders understand how to work with both the strengths and the weaknesses.

And so they know how to maneuver.

And instead of trying to correct the weaknesses, it's make maneuvers and create frameworks around the weaknesses.

How to work with them rather than beat your head against the wall and try to not have these weaknesses or not have an ego that gets engaged.

Just realize, hey, that's like, it's just here to stay.

Ego is forever, but being unconscious of your ego can end today.

Right.

You know, this is like a public display of having a meeting after the meeting.

Yeah.

You know, like when you get, when you're a company, when you're a small $5 million shop or even $20 million shop, you run like an L10, you have this meeting, you think as the head of the meeting, the visionary, this went really well.

And then everybody goes into their sex and goes, well, what did you think he meant by that?

What does this mean?

What does this mean?

And that dissent outside of the safe space where you should do that.

Then when you come back, creates this weird tension.

Totally.

And so, I mean, Chris has this policy that there are no meetings after the meeting, right?

Like, this is the meeting.

We're going to agree here.

And then we're going to go off.

No, no sidebar conversations.

And there's several different like tools and frameworks and whatnot to help us get through there.

I love the introduction of

the dark train.

That's especially

helpful outside of meetings.

Because usually the ego isn't going to be so strong in a meeting, but maybe afterwards you're going down that dark train.

But in the meeting,

we use what we call the six thinking caps.

And so when somebody is in that green hat of like ideation, instead of coming in and what we call a black hat where you want to go and criticize and everything else,

When we're in ideation or trying to express something that like that we want to envision for the business and somebody come and immediately attacks it, right?

That instigates that ego, right?

Like immediately like the response is like, whoa, like you're attacking my idea, what's going on or whatnot.

And so like creating even those frameworks of discussion that can eliminate ego from it.

Because like, like, hey, right now we're going to be green hatting, boom, boom, boom.

So everybody knows that it is not the time to go and attack but then when you say okay now let's throw our black hats on everybody has let their guard down and said i am disengaging the ego and allowing completely to be able to be my idea picked apart and everything else and like like those are just some of the frameworks that really keep healthy communication uh you know across the board but at the end of the day

There are going to be disagreements, right?

Like there's going to be like somebody is so set on doing something, like using Trump and Elon, for example, right?

Trump has something in this bill that he wants to get pushed through, or maybe some crony capitalism.

I don't know, right?

Like there's got to be something involved.

And there's also some the exact opposite.

Maybe, you know, maybe Elon, he's calling it the cuts, but it's the fact that it's hitting like government contracts associated with SpaceX and with his

Tesla solar brand.

MV mandate, solar tax credits.

Right.

All the different things.

And so it's like, you know, you have like these underlying disagreements.

And so it's like, how do you address that, right?

When it's like so strong, so difficult.

You have 100 people back and you each have 100 people.

Like, how do you want to address it?

Like, obviously the way that they've addressed it online, not acceptable, right?

Like not the right way.

But at the same time, it is fantastic.

knowing that they're willing to bring it up and have the discussion.

So there's two things, two overlaps into business.

Number one,

if they were aligned on the vision and it disadvantaged one person, but they had alignment on the vision, I think it's a different conversation.

Because then, you know,

that's the first thing.

The second piece is

just because it feels good and it works for a period of time doesn't mean it's going to work long term.

It's like if you're in a relationship with somebody.

So how do you mean?

What do you mean by that?

Yeah, I'll tell you.

So

I'll give you the fun example and then practical business example.

If you're in a relationship with somebody and it's like the honeymoon phase, it's the best.

You go, you're on dates, everything.

Sex all the time.

Yeah,

it's perfect.

And then you go to IKEA and you have to put together a piece of furniture and you realize, I hate this person.

The screws, they're missing screws.

Donnie, they're not missing screws.

That conversation ruins it.

And that's like the break point, the fail point.

And then you go back and you go,

maybe this wasn't the best.

idea, but it worked for the period of time.

And so anytime you get involved with new hires or partnerships,

the feeling can't be the only thing that is connecting you to.

There has to be a shared vision, a shared mission,

some kind of shared financial interests.

Obviously, in this case, it's tough.

And as a quick aside, can we just acknowledge that probably the biggest missed opportunity for IKEA is the upsell of marriage counseling.

Dude, the alignment is there.

Childcare, meatballs upstairs.

Yeah, marriage counseling on the way around.

Marriage counseling during in the assembly area.

Yeah, it'd be the day after the assembly attempt.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So when you when you go to when you go to hire a new person or have a new partner, the discussion isn't only about what can we do for each other, because that's phenomenal, but it's also like, how do you handle conflict?

How do you handle dissent?

Alex's opening was perfect.

We all as business owners want dissent because dissent in the framework of trust allows you to see your fail points and your blind spots.

And we all have that.

Hey guys, it's Chris.

If you're finding value in what what you're hearing go ahead and like and subscribe that way people just like you can find this content for free here on youtube now let's dive back in the show so our common language that we always use is what we call conflict right and and it and it stems from the five dysfunctions of a team right so the dysfunction number one is a lack of trust right so like trust is the foundation of any great team and then number two because if you have that trust right trust is is like hey i want what's best for you you want what's best for me we're connected we're aligned we We have the same vision, right?

Like we want, we share in commonalities there.

And so then the second one is a lack of trust or

lack of conflict, right?

It's like our inability to dissent or have conflict is usually stems from the fact that there is no trust, right?

Like there's not alignment there.

And so like, you know, one of the cultures that we've established over the years, like I've worked with Levi, who's sitting behind the camera today for many years.

And one of the languages that we address, like whenever we know that there's going to be conflict, we come and be like, hey, just want to reestablish, like, hey, we want the same thing, right?

We share trust, right?

We're in a trusting relationship.

You got me, I got you.

Okay, good.

Okay, because I'm going to bring up something.

And we know preemptively that that's the trigger for like, hey, there's going to be something to conflict.

And we're kind of preparing ourselves.

But it also disarms us in those situations because we know, like, yeah, dude, I'm aligned.

I want to be profitable.

I want to build the biggest education platform in the world for the trades and home service companies, right?

Like, like we both know that.

And so then when we disagree about ads or when we disagree about content creation or when we disagree, like like it's, it's totally fine, right?

Because we're conflicting and sharing a different opinion.

And ultimately, a different opinion is what brings creativity and allows us to get to the right result.

Because, you know, no matter how much our ego tells us, like, we're never right 100% of the time.

And so it's great having having that strong conflict across the organization.

There's a, have you ever seen the movie Hook?

Oh, yeah.

You remember Hook?

Oh, with Peter Pan.

Peter Pan.

But with Robin Williams and Peter Panning, baby.

What's that guy's name?

Dude, well, Rufio, babe.

Yeah, Rufio.

Rufio.

Oh.

I always love this line.

So Hook and Peter Pan are fighting at the end of the movie, and Peter Pan, like, retreats a little bit, and then Hook, like, grabs his hand and you know, gets his wrist, and he goes bad form or bad form bad form and i just think like yeah this is bad form what's happening yeah it's unnecessary and it's it's bad form it takes away from like the duel dueling is good if we saw elon dissent from trump in a healthy pragmatic and like academic manner yeah everybody would be like yes this is dude imagine this imagine if they held like a live debate yes on X, right?

Like, how dope would that be?

It's like, hey, I have a different opinion about this.

Let's battle it out in front of the world.

I mean,

because they're battling out regardless.

Like, let's make it healthy.

We would all love to see something like that.

But this is a meeting after the meeting, and that's conspiracy right there.

That's what I think should happen.

Yeah.

I think all this should happen.

Then they'll have the biggest ratings.

The greatest ratings.

People will come on.

The world's best.

I want to piggyback on something that Chris brought up.

So, the whole

concept of if the trust is there and it's high and it's the foundation,

it allows for something that I like to refer to as high bandwidth communication as opposed to low bandwidth communication.

You think about bandwidth, it's like data transfer.

One of the things that initially attracted me to work with you guys, honestly, was our very initial conversations, even when I was getting to know you guys.

I remember meeting Trent out in the hallway here.

high bandwidth communication.

It was just a feeling of like, dude, we have like a hardlined, like, you know, high-speed connection is just how I think about it.

So if you can imagine a room of people in a company, right?

Someone's probably the alpha in there like from an org chart standpoint, maybe from a personality standpoint, like you know, like, okay, this is like technically the boss, right?

And you have these other people in there.

There's low bandwidth communication and low conflict, you know, there's, there's no like dissent, no healthy dissent.

If the people in the room are overly preoccupied about whether or not something they say that isn't aligned with the chief in the room, let's say, is going to affect their status with the company or their opinion forever.

If they're insecure, then they're going to hold their cards.

They're going to be really, you know, reserved.

That's the emperor's clothes, right?

Yes.

Yes.

Exactly.

So another kind of like language piece you can use for this is just the metaphor of like checking a coat at the door at a nice restaurant.

You check your coat, right?

You go in without the coat.

It's there when you leave.

But when you have a meeting with your team, you can say, look, let's check our egos at the door.

Let's leave them outside.

You still have them, still a part of you, but in this room, and that's what you do when you reaffirm, hey, I love you.

We're a team.

I'd go to battle for you.

I'd bleed in the streets for you.

Let's check our egos at the door and have it out.

But now there's no holding back.

I'm not worried that I'm going to say something that's going to forever change your opinion of working with me.

And so, yeah, if you feel that level of safety, that's where the high bandwidth, conflict resolution, you can just fix things in minutes rather than days, weeks, or never.

You bring up such a strong point as far as like dysfunctional organizations, right?

Like the reason why people fail to conflict is because they have seen where somebody did conflict

and they were punished for it.

Oh yeah.

Right.

Like, oh, you fought against me.

Like you are now no longer getting projects and we're going to weed you out until we fire you.

Right.

And this happens with poor leadership all the freaking time.

And so like creating a safe zone, and

I hate that lingo, but like creating like a culture of safety of like, I can battle with the CEO

and

have no worry for my job.

Right.

Yeah.

And people that have never seen that, it's kind of shocking.

It's scary.

And they'll think, oh no, like Chris and Alex are fighting.

This is going to be terrible.

And then they experience, oh, they walked out of the room and like they're headed to the lake together.

They're best buds.

Like what just happened?

But that's what it looks like.

But it's not common.

And so people don't commonly see this.

That's why you don't see it happening naturally in business or marriages or any relationship.

So you've got to be an example of what this can look like.

And that's why I think this was a missed opportunity.

They could have shown us what that looks like.

They could have, without emotion and passion and all these cheap shots, been like, hey, we actually really disagree on policy.

Let's just like talk about the policy disagreements.

I still think I support him for this reason and this reason.

It would have been really cool.

So this is something also for your organization is that both people have to be, it's like a marriage.

Both people have to agree to this, the terms, which are if I have something to say to Chris and I say, hey, Chris, I heard that this was bothering you.

And Chris goes, oh, no, man, everything's fine.

We're cool, dude.

Don't even worry about it.

I don't care about it.

And then goes back to his silo and then

changes it up again.

And then it's like, well, we're not both agreeing.

So both people in the arrangement have to be able to say, hey, I'm open.

Are you open?

And if not, then you just have the wrong leadership.

And I want to speak to every leader that's watching this right now.

So if you're a strong leader like myself, like very strong-headed and willed and like my way is the right way, right?

Like that's, that's how I feel about most things, right?

You have to understand that's both your strength and your weakness.

And so one thing that I, that I have learned that works really well is like when people first get to know me, they first join my management team or they start working with me on a regular basis, one of the first preemptive things I tell them, I say, look, this is how I am, okay?

And it's going to appear that I don't want you to.

like question my authority and it's gonna appear that I don't want you to question my ideas like because that's how I'll come off because I'm very confident and I'm very like I

do think my ideas are the best in the world right like like let's no ifs ands or buts about that but I welcome you fighting back.

I want you to fight back.

I want you to prove to me why my idea sucks.

And if you can, I will be completely open to it.

And I want that more than anything.

And so just like giving that preemptive of like, like, this is how you work with my weakness.

Work alongside it, right?

Like, don't try fixing my weakness.

Don't try making me less confident.

Don't try making me, you know,

question whether or not I think I'm right.

But

when you encounter that and you have a countering idea, this is how you approach it.

And if you use these trigger words, I'm going to snap in and be like, oh, okay, they're doing what I told them to do, giving me the right feedback or whatnot.

And that's probably the best advice I could give to any leader that has that strong will.

Like

preemptively help your people understand exactly how to work with both your strengths and your weaknesses.

Yeah.

You never compromise on vision, but I know that you can compromise on tactics.

So as long as you have a team surrounding you that believes in your vision, then the strategy and the tactics are malleable as the environment changes.

And I think that's a huge...

strong suit, a skill of yours to say like, hey, really to our team.

To the team, right?

I thought this, it's going to be this.

As long as the vision is the same, however we get there is great.

Frankly, I can't imagine working with someone like myself like like

like really so like like shout out to the peep that that like can they can hold it up and like fight against me because dude It's it's tough, but it's welcomed.

So yeah There's one other thing I would add to this I think this is like another like almost like this natural law that you know a mentor taught me that I've never forgotten I think about this all the time.

It's like this equation Okay

to the degree that you are passionate about something, okay, an idea.

Let's just say you're passionate about an idea.

To that same degree, you tend to be attached to it.

And attachment is the fuel of ego, right?

An attachment is like a need.

I need this to go well.

If it doesn't go well, I'm shattered.

I'm crushed.

And so it's good for you to recognize that in yourself, also to recognize that in your partners, your coworkers, or whoever.

If they come in hot about an idea and they're passionate about it, just have an awareness, like, okay.

it's very likely that there's attachment here.

And so it becomes even more important that we like address this from this kind of place we're talking about where let's have the the egos exit the room, you know, because when you're talking about things that you're not crazy passionate about, ego doesn't really get involved.

I mean, it's like you're just tossing out a very casual idea.

It's like you want it, you want tacos, you want sushi, like, dude, you know, no dissent here is even going to border on like, you know, potentially dangerous.

Okay.

But if it's an idea you're really passionate about, I one time had this idea with my wife.

I came in hot.

Hey, I found this conference.

It's going to be legit.

It's this weekend.

It's like this like cool like, you know, relationship up-leveling thing.

And I'm, I'm very attached to it because I thought, I'm being the good guy here.

I got this great idea.

I made this plan.

It's like this expensive kind of spontaneous thing.

And she shot it down pretty quickly.

She's like, I'm not even interested in that.

Like, I don't like that idea.

This particular conference she wasn't into.

It hurt, dude.

And it just like the stories of like, man, look at me trying to be this proactive, do cool thing.

Right.

And so it sent me into a spin, a dark train, right?

What I've learned is like, if I can notice that in myself, I am really passionate about this idea.

Oh, let me be on the lookout.

My ego is going to want to get in the room and, you know, feel some strong way about this.

If it doesn't go my way, you can actually get to a place where you can detach the ego.

It takes a lot of practice.

I think ultimately it's a mastery level to be both passionate and detached.

And so

my coach taught me, like, look, this is true mastery, to be passionately detached.

It's rarely seen in nature.

This is not intuitive.

I love it.

And it's like where real players operate.

I mean, it's like when you do have an experience where you can be both passionate and detached,

the effects are incredible.

I love it.

You heard it here first.

Become passionately detached from that ego.

Operate from a high level of trust.

Don't be afraid to create conflict with those that you have the greatest trust and are trying to go and take over the world.

As always, like, comment, and subscribe.

Until next time.