How Brent Beshore Transformed 15 Companies Through Self Mastery

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  Beshore's transformation began when a stranger told him he saw a lot of shame and fear in him.

  On a walk at a small gathering in Colorado about three years earlier, a man asked to 'speak truth into your life' and said that shame and fear were damaging Brent's relationships. Brent would have rated his marriage a six or seven out of ten. Looking back, he calls it a two: 'Everything's relative', and he had never seen what a great marriage looked like up close. His first instinct was defensive ('you don't know me'), then he chose to surrender.

• 02

  Awareness without healing makes things worse before they get better.

  The year after that walk was 'horrible'. He could see how broken his relationships were, mostly because of him, with no way to repair them, and self-help didn't work for him. A friend sent him to a counselor in his own town of Columbia, Missouri. After 25–30 three-hour sessions, he traced behaviors back to layers underneath that he'd always 'shoved down'.

• 03

  Always paying the bill can be a form of control.

  His counselor asked how many of his last 100 shared meals he'd paid for. 'About a hundred.' Her reply: 'I wouldn't be your friend.' Real friendship means each person ceding control, and always paying builds quiet resentment. Now he says it would give him pleasure to pay but he'll respect their choice. He went on an apology tour to friends, and when they say no he feels loved rather than slighted.

• 04

  Heroes create victims: helping people who didn't ask can strip their agency and dignity.

  He recounts five or six 'dramatic heroics' in his life that each ended with the friendship souring. Heroics feed the helper ('oh thank you, Brent'). Rising to meet a need someone asks you for is just being a good friend. Imposing help on a need they didn't voice turns them into a victim. Relationships also need to go both ways, so he's learning to ask for help himself.

• 05

  There are two fuels: fear and love.

  A friend's analogy is clean versus dirty fuel. From outside, the car looks the same. Dirty fuel (fear, scarcity, needing praise) can be more potent in the short term, but it contaminates the engine. His stress was so self-inflicted that excess cortisol nearly cost him his right eye. He'd answer emails late on a Friday after a fight with his wife because people would praise his work ethic. His test now: do I have peace, or am I anxious? He contrasts outward-focused 'elders' with self-focused, 'incurved' elderly people, borrowing the idea from Pascal.

• 06

  Debt amplifies returns; it doesn't create them.

  Debt makes good things great, destroys mediocre things and 'nukes' bad ones. The more predictable the future, the more debt you can use, though not necessarily should. Permanent Equity buys 'loosely functioning disasters' with $3–20 million of free cash flow, where volatility is high. He calls heavy leverage hubris, since debt helps only the buyer and seller, not employees, customers or communities. 'The lack of patience changes the outcome.'

• 07

  Permanent Equity's model aims to have everyone 'eat at the same table'.

  Instead of the standard 2-and-20 model, with typical holds of two to three years and executives on 'tours of duty', the firm takes no fees or reimbursements of any kind. It earns a share of free cash flow as cash is returned to investors. That makes everyone want to reinvest in high-return, high-probability projects and avoid the 'bladder problem': the more cash you hold, the more likely you are to waste it. CEOs are paid on long-term free cash flow and often own 10–20%. The firm prefers to buy 51–70% and has never sold a company.

• 08

  Their biggest weakness is tolerating poor performance too long, mistaking nice for kind.

  Beshore says traditional private equity holds people accountable better. His firm deferred to relationships and optimism despite warning signs, which he calls his own failure as CEO. Being kind means telling someone they're in the wrong role and that it's hurting them. 'Careers often die by suicide, not homicide': under the Peter Principle, people rise beyond their abilities and pride stops them stepping back.

• 09

  Investing is ultimately about predicting people's behavior, so he uses Myers-Briggs and the Enneagram.

  Most people assume everyone thinks as they do. Brent is an extroverted, intuitive feeler and perceiver, and his wife is the opposite on every axis. Doing the tests together gave them empathy for each other. The firm tests the final three to five candidates for a role, not to box them in but to avoid projecting. One recently withdrew after seeing their results. He's an Enneagram 3w2: an achiever and people-pleaser whose worst fear is 'not being enough'.

• 10

  Look for misunderstood businesses, underwrite assuming no growth, and let price be your due diligence.

  Every target has a moat (it has survived and earns good returns) and 'lids' (it isn't bigger). The investment memo maps both. When Brent once peppered Buffett with questions, Buffett replied: 'Price is my due diligence.' Turning a 30-year trajectory around quickly is hubris. A Harvard-trained searcher who arrived with grand tech plans spent his first year fighting fires instead.