Eben Pagan reveals how to build a powerful team by finding 'star' performers who see themselves as causes rather than victims. He shares counterintuitive lessons about virtual team members and why focusing on results rather than activity creates better outcomes.
Power People
Eben shares how hiring his first team members Sheila and Denise from Elance taught him that remote workers can be more effective than in-person employees. When you only see results rather than activity, star performers shine while poor performers can't hide behind busy work.
Successful teams need four core types: organizers for administration, creatives for design and communication, business-focused people for operations, and deal makers for partnerships. Each type adds power like cylinders in a motor, creating synergistic growth.
Star performers fundamentally see themselves as causes—people who make things happen and change the world. Non-stars see themselves at effect, as victims of circumstances. This mindset difference is visible in their communication, body language, and approach to challenges.
The biggest hiring mistake is emotional estimation—choosing someone because you 'really like them' rather than evaluating their results capability. This leads to 75% of hires being mistakes according to research, even among trained HR professionals.
If you're asking how to motivate your team, you made an upstream hiring mistake. Star performers come pre-wired with motivation and passion. Trying to motivate unmotivated people is like swimming with a boat anchor and creates massive opportunity cost.
“Stars are at cause. That's the simple way of thinking about it. Stars don't walk around with a star on their shoulder that says, Hey, I'm a star. Come talk to me.”
— Eben Pagan▶ 14:33
Look for people who see themselves at 'cause' rather than 'effect'—they believe they can change themselves and their circumstances, are driven to evolve and learn, have emotional and social intelligence, want to contribute to something bigger than themselves, and live in what they see as a friendly, abundant universe.
“If you like a person a lot when you interview them, you have to have a little red flag go up and say, okay, this is probably going to be a problem.”
— Eben Pagan▶ 6:55
Emotional estimation—hiring someone because you 'really like them' rather than evaluating their ability to produce results. This leads to 75% of all hires being mistakes according to research.
“What I do is I call the person up, typically, and I say, Hey. How you doing? And usually, if it's a star, they're already bummed out. Right? They're already beating themselves up. And I say, What did you learn?”
— Eben Pagan▶ 9:12
Call them and ask 'What did you learn?' instead of criticizing. Focus on the lesson gained and remind them it's better to learn now than when the company is larger and the mistake would cost much more.
“The counterintuitive benefit is that the only thing you have to look at is their results. You're not seeing all their activity. You're not seeing all the things that they are acting like they're doing.”
— Eben Pagan▶ 1:57
Virtual workers force you to focus only on results rather than activity. You can't see their busy work or 'creative avoidance' behaviors—only what they actually accomplish.
“If you can find a star that fits one of those almost archetypal personality types, someone to organize and handle the administration, someone to handle some of the creative and design work, someone to be the business type person, and someone to be out making the deals.”
— Eben Pagan▶ 3:44
Build your team with four archetypal types: organizers for administration, creatives for design and communication, business-type people for operations, and deal makers for partnerships and external relationships.
“If you hire somebody to work for your team and you find that you're having to tell them what to do a lot and motivate them if you're asking the question how do I motivate my team you probably made a mistake.”
— Eben Pagan▶ 21:00
If you find yourself constantly having to motivate them or tell them what to do, you made an upstream hiring mistake. Stars are intrinsically motivated and don't need external motivation.
A systematic approach to finding team members who will drive business growth rather than create problems
Look for cause-oriented mindset
Identify people who see themselves as causes of change rather than victims of circumstances. Listen for this in how they talk and their body language.
Avoid emotional estimation
Don't hire someone just because you 'really like them.' If you like someone a lot in an interview, raise a red flag about potential bias.
Test intrinsic motivation
Look for people who are already driven to evolve, learn, and contribute to something bigger than themselves. Don't try to motivate unmotivated people.
Focus on results over activity
Especially with virtual team members, only evaluate based on results delivered, not how busy they appear to be.
Hire for archetypal roles
Build your team with organizers, creatives, business-type people, and deal makers to create a complete operational unit.
Handle mistakes constructively
When expensive errors happen, ask 'What did you learn?' instead of criticizing to maintain morale and extract value from mistakes.
Virtual team members force you to focus only on results rather than activity, eliminating creative avoidance behaviors that look productive but don't create outcomes.
Eben hired his first team members Sheila and Denise from Elance.com and discovered that when you only check results once daily or weekly, you can't see all the busy work—only what actually gets accomplished.
Build your team with four archetypal personality types: organizers for administration, creatives for design and communication, business-type people, and deal makers for partnerships.
Eben compares this to an eight-cylinder motor running on four cylinders—each new personality type adds power and they work together synergistically.
Emotional estimation—hiring someone because you 'really like them'—is one of the most dangerous and prevalent mistakes in business hiring.
Brad Smart, author of Topgrading, found that 75% of all hires are miss-hires. Eben witnessed a trained HR expert fall for this trap, saying 'I really like them' instead of evaluating job performance capability.
Star performers see themselves at cause—as people who make things happen and change the world—rather than as victims of circumstances.
This mindset difference is audible in how they talk, visible in their body language, and fundamental to their approach to work and challenges.
When team members make costly mistakes, respond with curiosity about lessons learned rather than anger, turning expensive errors into valuable education.
When Eben's stars make mistakes costing $50,000-100,000, he calls them and asks 'What did you learn?' instead of criticizing, explaining it's better to learn the lesson now than when the company is five times larger and it would cost $500,000.
Find intrinsically motivated people rather than trying to motivate unmotivated ones—if you're asking how to motivate your team, you made an upstream hiring mistake.
Eben explains that having to motivate people creates opportunity cost and is like 'trying to swim with a boat anchor chained around your leg' when business growth is already challenging enough.
Stars live in a friendly, abundant, opportunity-filled universe and believe they can change themselves and their circumstances.
Jerry Ballinger shared that Einstein said 'the most important question to answer is: is the universe a friendly place?' This fundamental belief creates entirely different behaviors and outcomes.
Virtual team members force you to focus only on results rather than activity, eliminating creative avoidance behaviors that look productive but don't create outcomes.
▶ 1:37Build your team with four archetypal personality types: organizers for administration, creatives for design and communication, business-type people, and deal makers for partnerships.
▶ 3:08Emotional estimation—hiring someone because you 'really like them'—is one of the most dangerous and prevalent mistakes in business hiring.
▶ 5:57Star performers see themselves at cause—as people who make things happen and change the world—rather than as victims of circumstances.
▶ 13:49When team members make costly mistakes, respond with curiosity about lessons learned rather than anger, turning expensive errors into valuable education.
▶ 9:12Find intrinsically motivated people rather than trying to motivate unmotivated ones—if you're asking how to motivate your team, you made an upstream hiring mistake.
▶ 21:00Stars live in a friendly, abundant, opportunity-filled universe and believe they can change themselves and their circumstances.
▶ 19:18Claim: “Having employees work in your office next to you is the most effective way to manage them”
Reframe: Virtual team members can be more effective because you only see results, not meaningless activity or creative avoidance
Claim: “Employees suck and are just problems to manage”
Reframe: Great team members are what create your business success and should be your mastermind group
Claim: “Try to change and develop the people you hire to fit your needs”
Reframe: Find people who are already intrinsically motivated and have the right mindset rather than trying to change them
“Take our 20 best people away and I will tell you that Microsoft would become an unimportant company.”
“Stars are at cause. That's the simple way of thinking about it.”
“If you like a person a lot when you interview them, you have to have a little red flag go up and say, okay, this is probably going to be a problem.”
“Having to motivate your people, I mean, that's like trying to swim with a boat anchor chained around your leg.”
“The most important question to answer is is the universe a friendly place?”
Eben Interviews Joe Polish Part 2
Why entrepreneurs are attacked for making money but praised for giving it away - and how to think about wealth creation differently.
Developing Your Opportunities As An Entrepreneur
Discover why entrepreneurial success lives at the intersection of chance and choice, and how to develop your opportunity recognition skills.
Test Different Niches
Discover why even the best marketers succeed only 1 in 5 times, and the counterintuitive testing approach that built a $100+ million business.
Coaching Strategies
Business Frameworks
Common Mistakes
Paradigm shifts happen when you get a new way of looking at reality that has more explanatory power and makes everything work better
Eben references James Burke's 'The Day the Universe Changed' and explains how Newton's physics changed how we see reality with gravity and motion laws, comparing it to his dating breakthrough where he learned successful men weren't trying to impress women but would tease them instead
Most people reject sales and marketing because they're good human beings who don't want to make others feel bad, but professional consultative selling puts the customer's needs first
Eben describes sitting at his real estate desk unable to make cold calls, getting physically sick and going home to sleep because he couldn't upset people. He learned consultative selling where you spend an hour understanding someone's values, challenges and frustrations before earning the right to offer solutions
Virtual businesses can scale to over 70 full-time employees without any physical office space
Eben Pagan built his business to over 70 full-time people working 100% virtually from different parts of the country and world, starting with hiring his first virtual assistant for $6/hour on Elance
Never make any decision about an opportunity when you're in fear because it shuts down the executive center in your brain
Eben explains that fear prevents strategic thinking, long-term planning, and consequential thinking - you can only think about preventing loss, which cuts off future opportunities
