In a booming market, even average operators can look like geniuses. But were they really that good—or just lucky? In this short clip, we challenge the illusion of effortless success and highlight why real skill shows when conditions shift. If you're serious about long-term wins in business, this one's for you.

There's a lot of guys in private equity who did sort of buyouts or sort of more mature private equity investing during that timeframe who think they're geniuses. And the reality is there's an enormous amount of work. There's an enormous amount of risk, but it's a rising tide floats all boats. And there was just a great tailwind of interest rates going down, inefficiency of the market becoming more efficient. Time I was there, we had four funds. We were always purposely constrained the size of the business. There was never going to be a $5 billion on cap fund because that was Onyx. We always knew we want to incrementally grow and stay somewhat in our market. Cause I think if you grow too quickly, if you go from 200 to 500 to 1.5 billion to 3 billion, you completely change your network of deal sources and the network of businesses and what you need to bring to a business.