What You Tolerate Becomes Your Culture

Welcome to Peaceful Growth, where you will find actionable tips to grow your agency to $10M (without working overtime).

You know, whenever someone new joins Multidots, we follow this tiny tradition that has turned out to be a big deal.

Once a month, I sit with our new joinees for an hour.
I ask about their story.
I share a few tips on how to grow and have a great time in Multidots.

And honestly, I feel every founder should do this.

We spend so much time and money hiring the right people.
But after the offer letter, the founder usually disappears.
HR takes over.
The team trains them.
And the founder stays busy with “bigger things.”

But who can guide a new hire better than the founder?
No one.

And yes, I do it because I want them to succeed—but let me be honest… there’s a selfish reason too.

We work hard to find good talent.
I want them to stay.
I want them to thrive.
I want them to grow with us.

So in this hour, I give them a crash course on how to grow at Multidots.

But that’s not what this article is about.

There’s something else that happens in these meetings… something that surprised me.

Everyone Kept Saying the Same Thing

Whenever I ask new joinees "why they joined Multidots", I hear the same answer:

“We joined because we love the culture here.”

I hear it from the Dots who completed 5, 7, 10, even 15 years with us.
I hear it from my founder friends who know our company from the outside.

Everyone keeps saying it:

“Multidots has an amazing culture.”

And this confused me.

Because honestly…
I never sat down and said, “Let’s build a culture.”
I never intentionally designed it from scratch.
I never followed a blueprint.

So I started asking myself:

What culture are they talking about?
What exactly did we create without planning it?

That question led to this whole reflection.

At first, I thought:

“Maybe our culture is our perks and policies?”
No—that stuff keeps changing.

“Maybe it’s the family-like vibe?”
Yes, we are people-centric—but we don’t confuse that with tolerance for poor behavior or weak performance. We care deeply about our people and hold high standards, something many ‘family-like’ cultures struggle to balance.

“Maybe it’s about compassion and care?”
Close… but not the whole truth.

I wasn’t getting anywhere.
So I did what I always do when I’m stuck:
I turned to books.

And two books gave me two totally different answers.

Book #1: The Buddha and the Badass: The Secret Spiritual Art of Succeeding at Work by Vishen Lakhiani
Book #2: No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention by Reed Hastings

Mindvalley - Culture = a "family" built on personal growth

In the book The Buddha and the Badass, Vishen Lakhiani talks about Mindvalley’s culture:

It revolves around holistic personal growth.
Not just at work… but in every area of your life:

• mind
• body
• spirit
• relationships

Everything.

It’s a place where you’re expected to transform.
Where self-improvement isn’t optional—it’s the norm.

And the environment reflects that:

• a lot of freedom
• a lot of learning
• a ton of social connections
• events like “Love Week” to deepen human bonds
• high personal standards (meditation, fitness, personal mastery)

Some people find this inspiring.
Some find it overwhelming—almost too intense.
A bit “cult-like,” even.

But the heart of it is clear:

Mindvalley sees itself as a family of people who want to grow and make a positive impact in the world.

If you’re hungry for growth, you fit right in.
If you stop growing, you naturally fall out of sync.

Their internal culture mirrors their mission to “unlock human potential.”

Work and play blend together.
Learning and living blend together.
It’s all one ecosystem.

Netflix-culture = a "team" built on pure performance

And then in No Rules Rules, Reed Hastings explains Netflix’s culture, which sits on the complete opposite end of the spectrum from Mindvalley.

If Mindvalley feels like a family built for personal growth…
Netflix feels like a championship sports team built to win.

Here’s what makes their culture unique:

They attract and keep only “dream team” players.
Top performers stay. Average performers don’t.

They basically treat employees like adults who can fully control their own decisions.

• No vacation limits
• Flexible expense policies
• Stunning levels of transparency
• Radical candor (meaning: brutally honest feedback)
• Very few rules
• Results > process

The bet that Netflix makes is simple:

If you hire incredible people, you don’t need tight policies.
You give them freedom, and they take responsibility.

No micromanagement.
No babysitting.
No emotional cushions.

If someone increases the team’s chance of winning, they stay.
If not, they part ways quickly and clearly.

Two worlds. Two extremes. Both are powerful in their own way.

These books gave me some clues around our culture at Multidots.

Then, I reflected on an advice I got from an another founder friend, who told me, if you really want to understand your company’s culture—not the one in your deck or on your website, but the one you actually live—ask yourself two simple questions:

Who do you hire?
Who do you let go?

That’s where the truth lives.
Everything else is decoration.

So I looked back at our hiring and firing patterns over the last 16 years at Multidots.

Phase 1: We hired for potential.

In the early years, we focused on good humans with basic skills and strong learning ability.

People who were kind.
People who were hungry.
People who were willing to grow.

And some of them grew into stars. Some didn’t.
When it wasn’t a fit, we ended things with kindness and clarity.

Phase 2: Now we hire for skill + experience + potential.

As we matured, we realized something important:

Culture fit is impossible to see in an interview.
You only discover the real person once they’re working with the team, handling clients, dealing with pressure, and solving problems.

So today, we hire for ability—skills, experience, potential—and then we watch how they blend with our way of working.

If someone lifts up the village, they stay.
If someone disrupts the peace or can’t grow with us, we help them move on respectfully and quickly.

So… What Is the Culture of Multidots?

When I zoomed out and looked at 16+ years of decisions—who we hired, who we promoted, who we let go—one thing became very clear:

We’re not a sports team.
We’re not a family.
We’re a tribe.
A village.

A community of people who care about each other…
but also care about growth, responsibility, and doing meaningful work.

Not the intensity of Netflix.
Not the deep personal immersion of Mindvalley.
But something right in the middle.

Something more human.
Something more sustainable.
Something more us.

Here’s what I mean:

Everyone grows. Everyone transforms.

This is at the heart of our culture.

Just like Mindvalley believes in personal mastery, we believe every person who joins Multidots should leave as a better version of themselves—professionally and personally.

Not because we force it.
But because the environment naturally pushes you to rise.

Treat everyone the way you want to be treated.

Simple. Old school. But powerful.

This one principle shapes our feedback style, our decisions, our leadership, and even the way we let people go.
We choose clarity without cruelty. Kindness without drama.

Every team has its own subculture. Just like families in a village.

Our sales team will have a different vibe from our engineering team.
Our design team will operate differently from our operations team.

And that’s normal.

In a real village, every home has its own rhythm—but everyone still shares the same values.
Same here.

We’re not aiming for one “perfect” culture.
We’re aiming for alignment, not uniformity.

A hybrid culture: Mindvalley × Netflix

When I really looked at it, I realized our culture sits right between these two worlds:

From Mindvalley, we borrow:

• personal growth
• continuous learning
• the idea that work can transform you

From Netflix, we borrow:

• results > process
• freedom with responsibility
• treating people like adults

Not as extreme as either one.
But a healthy blend.

Growth with peace.
Freedom with accountability.
Learning with performance.

That balance—honestly—is where Multidots feels the most “Multidots.”

Our Core Values That Hold The Village Together

These are the things that quietly hold the village together.

1. Think From the Mind, Act From the Heart: We make decisions rationally.
We use our hearts to guide our actions. This balance keeps us strategic and compassionate.

2. Strive for Excellence: We believe excellence is a habit. A way of showing up. A daily commitment—not a one-time effort.

3. 1% Better Every Day: Tiny progress. Daily progress. Life-long progress. In fitness, skills, habits, craft—every step counts.

4. Life-Long Learners: We learn because we want to. We grow because we’re curious. Learning is not a task here—it’s a lifestyle.

5. Deliver 110%: We don’t just meet expectations. We exceed them. Clients, teammates, projects—everyone should feel the extra effort.

6. Make Magic Happen: Not everything great can be explained. Sometimes you just follow your instinct. Sometimes you trust your intuition. That’s where the real magic comes from.

7. Do the Right Things: Integrity is non-negotiable. We stay honest. We stay transparent. We build trust through our actions—not our slogans.

What You Tolerate is Culture

We’re a village of good people who want to grow, contribute, and live in peace—
while doing world-class work and treating each other with kindness.

That’s who we are.
That’s what people feel when they join.
That’s what people remember 10 years later.

And when I finally saw it clearly… it made perfect sense.

I want to close with a line from one of my favorite authors, Keith J. Cunningham, from The Road Less Stupid:

“What you tolerate becomes your culture.”

And he’s right.
Our culture isn’t what we say.
It’s what we allow, what we encourage, and what we protect in our little village.

📚 I'm writing a book

I wanted to share a quick update on my book progress. I’ve finalized the introduction, completed around 14 chapters, and locked in the full outline. I’m really excited about how it’s coming together, and I’ll keep sharing updates as I go.

I’ve also been playing around with book cover design using Google’s Nano Banana Pro. Nothing is final yet, but here’s the one I’m liking the most so far. Would love to hear your thoughts!

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One More Thing...

A lot of you have asked about the tools I use to stay productive and grow my agency.

So, I put them all in one place—organized by category:

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And more.

You can check them out here.

Hope it helps! 🚀