Why Splitting Your Focus Slows Growth — Transcript

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1. 0:00Entrepreneurship is far more a war of
2. 0:02the heart than it is a war of the mind.
3. 0:04Like we can understand what we should
4. 0:06do, we just don't do it. And I think
5. 0:08that's why
6. 0:10we're so much better at giving advice
7. 0:11than we are at following it. So most
8. 0:13people if they just followed their own
9. 0:14advice, they'd be successful.
10. 0:16Right? And so
11. 0:18with this kind of valley of despair, I
12. 0:21call it
13. 0:22niche slapping. It's like don't make me
14. 0:24niche slap you.
15. 0:25>> [laughter]
16. 0:26>> Which is like when you have three things
17. 0:27going on, it's like let me I slap you
18. 0:30into just picking one. Because the thing
19. 0:32is is that any of them can work, but
20. 0:34none of them will work unless you pick
21. 0:36only one. Mhm. Because it's actually, in
22. 0:39my opinion,
23. 0:41an exercise in arrogance to assume that
24. 0:44you doing three things is somehow going
25. 0:46to beat somebody who's doing one. And I
26. 0:48can promise you the competitor who is
27. 0:50going to beat you is only doing that one
28. 0:51thing. And you think a third of your
29. 0:53time is going to beat theirs? No. It's
30. 0:55not going to I think it's arrogant. And
31. 0:57so there's actually like an under
32. 0:59there's like an underpinning of ego
33. 1:01underneath of this. And I say this as
34. 1:02somebody who did this. So like when I
35. 1:03had the launch business, I also had my
36. 1:05six gyms. I also had a chiropractor
37. 1:07agency and I also had a dental agency.
38. 1:09And so I would introduce myself and
39. 1:10like, "Oh, I own lots of companies." But
40. 1:13I think one of the biggest
41. 1:14misconceptions when you're an
42. 1:15entrepreneur is not understanding the
43. 1:16difference between being an owner and
44. 1:18being the CEO.
45. 1:19And so they might hear that you have a
46. 1:21portfolio, they might hear that I have a
47. 1:22portfolio and be like, "Okay, well they
48. 1:23have a portfolio so I must model that.
49. 1:25That guy's tall, I should play
50. 1:26basketball." Doesn't work that way.
51. 1:28Right? I should be So if I want to be
52. 1:29rich, I should fly private. Doesn't work
53. 1:30that way.
54. 1:32Um it's conflating order.
55. 1:35And so
56. 1:37we must do these things in order to get
57. 1:39the outcome. We have to concentrate on
58. 1:41only one thing in order to get the
59. 1:43outsize return. And
60. 1:46that spreading of attention
61. 1:48especially when you're newer in the
62. 1:50entrepreneurial career, it's like you
63. 1:51already don't know so many things. How
64. 1:53do you now want to have three sets of
65. 1:55unknowns that you want to try and
66. 1:56conquer at the same time. And the the
67. 1:58fallacy of thinking is that I'm going to
68. 2:00try all of them and see which one works.
69. 2:03But none of them will work because
70. 2:05you're waiting to see which one will
71. 2:07work. Because you can force, in my
72. 2:09opinion, you can force one thing to
73. 2:11work. Provided like I'm going to I'm
74. 2:13going to just assume basics like you're
75. 2:15selling you're not selling $5 bills for
76. 2:16$4. Like
77. 2:18you know, the normal economics of
78. 2:19business like if if if if a real estate
79. 2:21business exists, there are other people
80. 2:23are making money. There are hair salon
81. 2:24businesses where people are making
82. 2:25money. There are lawn mowing where
83. 2:26people are making money. You can make
84. 2:28money in all of them. You just can't
85. 2:29make money in all of them.
86. 2:30>> Yeah, yeah, yeah, [laughter] yeah, yeah.
87. 2:31At the same And it is when you walked in
88. 2:33today and you sat down on the chair, I
89. 2:34said like what's going on with you
90. 2:35professionally? I remember what you
91. 2:37said. You said more of the same and
92. 2:38better.
93. 2:39Which clearly comes from your wisdom.
94. 2:41>> [laughter]
95. 2:42>> My infinite wisdom, right? Well, it's
96. 2:43just from from from from from suffering.
97. 2:46Um
98. 2:47the
99. 2:48the the woes of this. Like
100. 2:52the biggest entrepreneurial mistakes
101. 2:53I've made in my career have all come
102. 2:55from splitting my attention.
103. 2:57Every one of them.
104. 2:59Like every single one of them. Like I
105. 3:00talked about how I had the e-commerce
106. 3:02business that I bolted onto my to my
107. 3:03licensing company. I should not have
108. 3:05done that. As soon as I did that, my my
109. 3:07revenue started slowing down in its
110. 3:08growth.
111. 3:08>> Why did you?
112. 3:10>> Because I was ADD.
113. 3:11I like I just I was like oh my I don't
114. 3:13want to leave money on the table.
115. 3:15And I want to I want to be so violent
116. 3:17about this. You are always going to
117. 3:19leave money on the table.
118. 3:21That is the result of focus.
119. 3:23But you're you're leaving a small amount
120. 3:25of money on the table to pursue the much
121. 3:27larger money that's on another table of
122. 3:29just sticking with the thing that you're
123. 3:31on right now. Because compounding, if I
124. 3:34were to show a chart here, it's like if
125. 3:36you're at year three of your thing
126. 3:38and you want to think about moving to
127. 3:40year zero of a new thing, you have to
128. 3:42compare maybe year zero of a new thing
129. 3:44grows faster,
130. 3:47but it has to grow faster than year
131. 3:48three to four of the the that you're on
132. 3:50right now. And I think that's the people
133. 3:53compare year zero to year zero, but not
134. 3:55year four to year zero. And the thing is
135. 3:57is you actually we have a linear life.
136. 3:59And so we that is it's an unfair but
137. 4:01true comparison of the opportunity cost.
138. 4:04And every exceptionally
139. 4:07successful entrepreneur that I know has
140. 4:09just stuck with one thing for such an
141. 4:10inordinate amount of time. And I think
142. 4:12there's a quote by
143. 4:13I want to say Shane Parrish. He said
144. 4:16success is
145. 4:18doing the obvious thing for an
146. 4:20extraordinary period of time without
147. 4:22believing that you're smarter than you
148. 4:23are.
149. 4:23>> [laughter]
150. 4:25>> And it's just like you we we know what
151. 4:27we need to do and
152. 4:30So we don't need to make our lives more
153. 4:32complex. Complexity will come with
154. 4:35scale. I promise.
155. 4:36And so just simply trying to do more of
156. 4:39what you're already doing well is
157. 4:40already hard enough.
158. 4:42Don't add anything else. And so like if
159. 4:45you need to write some sort of
160. 4:46commitment of like I'm just going to
161. 4:47stick with this, then do that. But
162. 4:50the
163. 4:53What happens is when we're talking about
164. 4:54the levels earlier about like beating
165. 4:56the bosses,
166. 4:57so what happens is
167. 4:59you know how to beat boss one through
168. 5:01three
169. 5:02of of the game.
170. 5:04And so then you just say, "Okay, well,
171. 5:06I'm just going to start the game over
172. 5:07and beat boss I mean this is this time
173. 5:09it's going to be different." But then
174. 5:11you just get to level three again and
175. 5:12then you're stuck again. And so people
176. 5:14will just keep getting up to level three
177. 5:17and new and new and new endeavors over
178. 5:19and over again because they never learn
179. 5:20how to get past that boss. And so you
180. 5:22just have to confront the uncertainty of
181. 5:25knowing that you don't know how to do
182. 5:27it, but that you will figure it out if
183. 5:29you keep doing enough repetitions.
184. 5:31And that's where you talk to as many
185. 5:33people as you can. You see what they
186. 5:34said, you consolidate it all, you say,
187. 5:36"I think this is the highest likely
188. 5:37path. It might not work, but I do
189. 5:39believe fundamentally that if we cut
190. 5:40people's hair well
191. 5:42and we do it for a long period of time,
192. 5:44we will have a thriving business. And if
193. 5:45we have a really good model from that
194. 5:47thing, we might be able to open up
195. 5:48another location. And if we keep our
196. 5:50costs down, we might be able to have an
197. 5:51actual model that we could either invest
198. 5:53our own capital or bring somebody else
199. 5:54and take it national. Or like all of
200. 5:56these like I have yet to find a business
201. 5:59that can't get to a hundred million
202. 6:00dollars a year.
203. 6:02That has a permutation of it that
204. 6:03exists.
205. 6:04You're a dry cleaner, fine. Well, cool.
206. 6:06We'll build the model and either we're
207. 6:07going to license the model, we can
208. 6:08franchise the model out, we can get
209. 6:09outside investors, we can scale it
210. 6:10nationally, we can do it. But the crazy
211. 6:12goals are only crazy because people have
212. 6:14crazy timelines. They're actually very
213. 6:16sane goals if you extend the timeline
214. 6:17out.
215. 6:18If you have a a true ten-year goal or a
216. 6:20true twenty-year goal, almost anything's
217. 6:21accomplishable. I mean
218. 6:23almost every multi-billion dollar
219. 6:25company is about, you know, they get
220. 6:27it's usually between like year six and
221. 6:28ten when companies get to kind of like
222. 6:30those big numbers.
223. 6:32And most people who are listening to
224. 6:33this are
225. 6:35five years into entrepreneurship, but
226. 6:36you're six months into the thing that
227. 6:37you've been working on right now. And
228. 6:39you keep restarting the clock for
229. 6:40getting to year ten every time you start
230. 6:42over.
231. 6:44And I think that's the part that it took
232. 6:45me a very long time to figure out and I
233. 6:47think it takes a lot of entrepreneurs.
234. 6:48Like everyone messes around with a lot
235. 6:50of stuff in the beginning cuz you just
236. 6:51don't know what you're doing.
237. 6:52And so
238. 6:53in my experience, it takes about five
239. 6:56years for most entrepreneurs that I know
240. 6:58to just like find something that works.
241. 7:00>> [laughter]
242. 7:00>> Like like takes about five years to
243. 7:02figure out which way is north.
244. 7:04Right? Yeah. And then it takes like
245. 7:06another five years. And a lot of people
246. 7:08that's it. Like they they restart, they
247. 7:09they they go off crash and burn.
248. 7:12And it takes another five years to build
249. 7:13something that can can create
250. 7:15generational wealth.
251. 7:17So it's about a ten-year slug. And
252. 7:18here's the really hard truth about it.
253. 7:21If you have a job right now
254. 7:24for almost all of that five years, you
255. 7:26quit your job because you don't want to
256. 7:27work as hard as you are and you want to
257. 7:29make more money.
258. 7:31And as soon as you quit, you will
259. 7:32realize that you are now going to work
260. 7:34way harder than you were and you're
261. 7:35going to make less money
262. 7:37for an extended period of time. The one
263. 7:39benefit is that you get to claim all
264. 7:41responsibility for how little you make
265. 7:42and how much you work.
266. 7:44>> [laughter]
267. 7:44>> Because you're like, "My boss is an
268. 7:45idiot, and it's me."
269. 7:47But, it's the truth. And I think that in
270. 7:50some ways, having that
271. 7:52um
272. 7:53optimistic ignorance
273. 7:55is actually one of the really redeeming
274. 7:57traits of entrepreneurs.
275. 7:59And one of the really hard parts is that
276. 8:01the biggest jump you have to make gets
277. 8:03so immediately reinforced from the
278. 8:05freedom you have from being able to, you
279. 8:07know, chart your own path.
280. 8:11But,
281. 8:14that big success of quitting one thing
282. 8:16and starting another,
283. 8:18you need to immediately forget.
284. 8:20And I think that fundamentally, that is
285. 8:22why so many entrepreneurs keep doing it
286. 8:24is because the first time you do it,
287. 8:27it's the biggest rush ever. You quit
288. 8:28your job, you do the business, and and
289. 8:30you get some some first traction. And
290. 8:32that for that first dollar that you make
291. 8:34when the new business, it's like the
292. 8:35best dollar ever, right?
293. 8:37But, it's such a strong reinforcer that
294. 8:40what does it reinforce? It reinforces
295. 8:42stopping what you're doing and starting
296. 8:44something else. And so, I think one of
297. 8:45the fundamental errors of
298. 8:47entrepreneurship is that sometimes, the
299. 8:50jumping ship to start this thing is the
300. 8:52lesson that you need to immediately
301. 8:53unlearn, because after that, you have to
302. 8:56just stick with it for a very long
303. 8:57period of time.
304. 8:59If you like this video and you're a
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