Why You Should Go All In on One Thing — Transcript

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1. 0:00So, if you look at how the vast majority
2. 0:02people made their wealth, the vast
3. 0:04majority, they made their wealth doing
4. 0:06one thing very well and then then they
5. 0:09have enough resources that they can
6. 0:11start building out other verticals. And
7. 0:12so, we only see the ultra success once
8. 0:14it's already built through one channel
9. 0:16and then it appears like an ecosystem,
10. 0:18but almost no businesses begin as one.
11. 0:22>> So, they begin with multiple things.
12. 0:23>> No, they begin with one thing and they
13. 0:24go all in on that thing for an extended
14. 0:26period of time and they allow that one
15. 0:27thing to just they want to take it to
16. 0:29the natural extreme. I'll give you I'll
17. 0:31give you a story to to illustrate the
18. 0:32point. So, a friend of mine,
19. 0:33acquaintance, from high school called me
20. 0:35up.
21. 0:35>> He's not friends with him anymore.
22. 0:37>> [laughter]
23. 0:37>> No, it wouldn't be fair to have it
24. 0:38wouldn't be fair to my friends to call
25. 0:39him a friend. Um,
26. 0:41an acquaintance of mine from high school
27. 0:43saw me doing some stuff and he saw my
28. 0:44cell phone number and and hit me up from
29. 0:46like however long ago. Anyways, and
30. 0:49uh he had a has a had a contracting
31. 0:51roofing business.
32. 0:52And so, I said, you know, how's
33. 0:53business? And he's like, "Ah, it's it's
34. 0:54great." Um, and he's describing that
35. 0:57they how they do roofs and I was like,
36. 0:58"Oh, that's amazing, dude."
37. 1:00>> And uh he was like and he paused. He's
38. 1:01like,
39. 1:02"We also do a little general contracting
40. 1:03work." And I was like,
41. 1:05"Okay." He's probably doing five or six
42. 1:06million bucks a year. I was like, "Okay.
43. 1:09Got it. So, you do roofs and you do some
44. 1:11general contracting." He's like, "Yeah,
45. 1:13and we do some building flips." And I
46. 1:15was like,
47. 1:16"Okay."
48. 1:18He's like, you know, I I don't I don't
49. 1:19leave money on the table. And so, I use
50. 1:21this almost like everyone on my team
51. 1:22knows this joke. I'm like, "Ah, I don't
52. 1:23want to want to leave money on the
53. 1:24table."
54. 1:25Uh because there you leave small money
55. 1:28on the table
56. 1:30by continuing to go all in on the one
57. 1:31thing and that's how you make the most
58. 1:34money.
59. 1:35And so,
60. 1:36if you look at the biggest roofing
61. 1:38company in the United States, it's a
62. 1:40billion-dollar plus company. So, why
63. 1:43does this person think that he needs to
64. 1:44have three businesses in order to have a
65. 1:47larger business?
66. 1:48It doesn't. It's just typically they're
67. 1:50they're limited in some way by their
68. 1:52ability to get customers and so, the
69. 1:54only thing they can think of is sell
70. 1:55them more stuff, but in so doing create
71. 1:57multiple businesses that are too
72. 1:59operationally complex to manage. And so
73. 2:03you never really over expand, you just
74. 2:05under talent. So you don't have enough
75. 2:07good people who can do the stuff. And
76. 2:09usually you can't get enough good people
77. 2:10because the core business doesn't make
78. 2:11enough money
79. 2:13to attract the good people. And so then
80. 2:15you get into this no man's land where
81. 2:16you have three uh we call them mutant
82. 2:18businesses where it's like, "Well, this
83. 2:19one kind of feeds this one and this one
84. 2:20kind of feeds this one." And it only
85. 2:21works in the entrepreneur's head, but
86. 2:22never in reality. And so
87. 2:26I define commitment as the elimination
88. 2:27of alternatives. And so focus, if you
89. 2:30think about it, I think focus and
90. 2:31commitment are very similar because if
91. 2:32you think about the absolute most
92. 2:33focused person in the world, they would
93. 2:35do not they wouldn't sleep, they
94. 2:36wouldn't eat, they would only do one
95. 2:37thing. And anything that is not that one
96. 2:38thing is less focused than absolute
97. 2:40focus. And so the most focused
98. 2:42entrepreneurs
99. 2:44say no to things that they desperately
100. 2:46want to do and know they could crush.
101. 2:49But they say no to that because they
102. 2:50realize that saying no is actually
103. 2:51saying yes again to the thing that they
104. 2:53believed and they started on there,
105. 2:54their mission to do.
106. 2:56And so um I would say it is probably one
107. 3:00of
108. 3:01five or six big consistent errors that
109. 3:05entrepreneurs will make. It's very
110. 3:07difficult to get out of when you have
111. 3:08multiple half children. They're not
112. 3:11They're not to adult They're not to
113. 3:12adolescents yet. They're not They're not
114. 3:13adults yet. They're just toddlers. And
115. 3:15then you just don't have enough time or
116. 3:16resources to feed them all and you don't
117. 3:18have you don't have the money for a
118. 3:19nanny.
119. 3:20And so but like they don't actually grow
120. 3:21up though.
121. 3:22>> [laughter]
122. 3:23>> And so and then to where the analogy
123. 3:25ends obviously is that sometimes you
124. 3:26have to let it go. And
125. 3:29to use a different analogy that would be
126. 3:31more palatable, you have to prune the
127. 3:32tree in order to keep it growing.
128. 3:34And so a lot of times you have to
129. 3:35redirect. Yeah, you have to redirect the
130. 3:37resources towards the thing that you get
131. 3:39the highest returns on.
132. 3:42>> So when do you So it's when it
133. 3:44lucratively not Is that word right? When
134. 3:47you produce enough money for you to flow
135. 3:50another idea is when you're able to do
136. 3:52that?
137. 3:53>> You can always do it. The question is
138. 3:55whether the returns are higher than
139. 3:57doing more on the same one that you're
140. 3:58already have have leverage in.
141. 4:00And so typically when you have this cash
142. 4:03that's coming from this thing that's
143. 4:04working, that cash would probably be
144. 4:06best suited going back into that thing
145. 4:07that's working making it even more
146. 4:08profitable.
147. 4:10It's like you want to feed the feed the
148. 4:11winners, starve the losers. You don't
149. 4:12want to steal from the winner and then
150. 4:14feed the loser.
151. 4:15>> Yeah.
152. 4:15>> Now we don't know what's a loser yet,
153. 4:17but it's very rare, not impossible but
154. 4:20very rare that someone will gain more
155. 4:23from splitting their attention.
156. 4:26And so a different way of thinking about
157. 4:28this is imagine you did 3 years in one
158. 4:29business and then you had the idea of
159. 4:32another business.
160. 4:33We usually will say, "Okay, well man, I
161. 4:36could probably in the first year that
162. 4:37business do half of what I'm doing in
163. 4:39this business and probably by the second
164. 4:40year I could do as much or more than I'm
165. 4:42currently doing." You're like, "Oh,
166. 4:43that's a better business than the one
167. 4:44I'm in."
168. 4:45But we can't compare it like that
169. 4:47because you're already in year three of
170. 4:49your current one.
171. 4:50>> Yeah.
172. 4:50>> Which means that you'd actually have to
173. 4:51compare it to year five of your current
174. 4:53one with all that attention and
175. 4:54resources directed back at that one.
176. 4:57And most times year five will almost
177. 4:59always beat year one or year two of any
178. 5:01new business.
179. 5:03And so this is why even if you are in an
180. 5:04inferior vehicle, um I think there's a
181. 5:06saying in the stock market which is uh
182. 5:08time in the market beats timing the
183. 5:10market.
184. 5:12>> Time in the market beats
185. 5:13>> timing the market.
186. 5:14>> Yeah.
187. 5:15>> So it's like you have to put your time
188. 5:17in the in the lifting world which I'm
189. 5:18coming from is like we call it time
190. 5:19under the bar.
191. 5:20It's like you just have to put enough
192. 5:21time under the bar in.
193. 5:23>> And this is purely like business, right?
194. 5:25It's not even like you wouldn't put this
195. 5:26in the category of I have a successful
196. 5:28business and then this is my passion and
197. 5:30I I want I do it because I love it.
198. 5:32>> I think you can do something because you
199. 5:33love it. I think that's fine. It's just
200. 5:34a question of like you have limited
201. 5:36resources. Is
202. 5:38again, I speak in purely practical
203. 5:40terms.
204. 5:40>> Yeah, business.
205. 5:41>> When you when you when you when you
206. 5:43divert resources,
207. 5:45you divert nutrients, sunlight, water to
208. 5:47another plant, the main plant will grow
209. 5:49less
210. 5:50than if you put all of that on the main
211. 5:52one.
212. 5:52That's also fine. It's just understand
213. 5:55the trade that you're making. Is that
214. 5:57this will not grow as fast, and you
215. 5:59might be less profitable overall, and
216. 6:01probably more stressed.
217. 6:02>> What was the first time you've ever done
218. 6:04that for you?
219. 6:04>> I've done that so many times, which is
220. 6:06why I can describe it in such vivid
221. 6:08clarity.
222. 6:09>> So so [laughter]
223. 6:11Do you do you still do that now? Is
224. 6:13there any
225. 6:13>> Yes, it's still incredibly difficult.
226. 6:15Like I mean
227. 6:16one of the one of the the
228. 6:18uh
229. 6:18recurring themes in my content called
230. 6:20the woman in the red dress.
231. 6:21And it's because it's probably one of my
232. 6:22favorite scenes in the Matrix, which is
233. 6:24uh Neo is going through the training
234. 6:26program. He's walking behind Neo
235. 6:27Morpheus,
236. 6:29uh and Morpheus is talking about
237. 6:30something. There are all these people
238. 6:31all of a sudden and the woman in the red
239. 6:32dress walks by, and Morpheus says, "Were
240. 6:33you listening to me, or were you looking
241. 6:34at the woman in the red dress?" And he
242. 6:36says, "Look again." He looks back, and
243. 6:37it's an agent pointing a gun at his
244. 6:38head. And to me, the woman in the red
245. 6:40dress is always the distraction, the
246. 6:42thing that looks appealing, right? The
247. 6:45thing that will take you take your eye
248. 6:46off the ball. Um and so, when I met
249. 6:49Leila, for example, I was a successful
250. 6:53entrepreneur. I'll use quotes. I thought
251. 6:54I was successful.
252. 6:55Um I had I think I had four or five gyms
253. 6:58at the time when we met.
254. 6:59>> Um Some guy who owns one is like,
255. 7:02>> [laughter]
256. 7:02>> And and I I had a I had a a dental
257. 7:06agency that I had a partner with. I had
258. 7:09a chiropractor agency that I had a
259. 7:11partner with. I had a gym launch
260. 7:13business where I'd fly around and launch
261. 7:15gyms, not where my gyms were.
262. 7:18And I had all of that, and I was the CEO
263. 7:19of all of it. So I'd be like, "I own
264. 7:21companies."
265. 7:23Um and obviously, when we started
266. 7:26dating, uh she had this brilliant idea
267. 7:28where she said, "Hey, you know, this
268. 7:30launch business, you take all the cash
269. 7:33from this and you feed all these other
270. 7:34ones.
271. 7:35What if you just spent all your time on
272. 7:37the launch business, cuz you're spending
273. 7:38like 20% of your time on it, and it's
274. 7:40making like all the money.
275. 7:42And the the the difficulty between there
276. 7:46and where I ultimately ended up was like
277. 7:47three hard conversations that I had to
278. 7:49have that I was dreading.
279. 7:51And so when I had to really write down
280. 7:54will these three conversations be the
281. 7:56things that limit me from my goal, it
282. 7:59became much more practical of like,
283. 8:01"Okay, I'm going to get through these
284. 8:02things. I will feel like I'm going to
285. 8:03die, but I won't.
286. 8:04And I will get through it." And then I
287. 8:06did. I did all three in the same day.
288. 8:08Cuz I just like I had to I had to like
289. 8:09rip it off like a band-aid. How did I
290. 8:11feel? Free.
291. 8:13>> Did it feel way less worse than you
292. 8:15thought it was?
293. 8:16>> The anticipation is always worse.
294. 8:18>> Mhm.
295. 8:19>> And then after the first one's done,
296. 8:20you're like, "I want to call everyone."
297. 8:22Like
298. 8:23I like tell tell your you're like Yeah,
299. 8:24yeah. Yeah, yeah.
300. 8:26I got some things [laughter] I got to
301. 8:27share. Right?
302. 8:28>> got to talk to him. Put on speaker.
303. 8:29>> Yeah. And so and so yeah, I think it's
304. 8:32it's it's a great momentum builder. It's
305. 8:33like just have one hard conversation,
306. 8:34you realize that you don't die, and
307. 8:35you'll and you'll get through it. But um
308. 8:38you have like it has been There has been
309. 8:39no truer lesson in my life than the
310. 8:42return on focus. I think David Senra
311. 8:44from the Founder podcast, I don't know
312. 8:45if you've if you've heard of it. Um
313. 8:47he said he if he consolidated it every
314. 8:49single podcast he's done with all the
315. 8:51billionaires he's been on into one word,
316. 8:53it was focus.
317. 8:56Which is just choosing to go all in over
318. 8:58and over and over again
319. 8:59on this one thing.
320. 9:00If you like this video and you're a
321. 9:01business owner who wants to break
322. 9:02through your current revenue ceiling, I
323. 9:04distilled every lesson from scaling 10
324. 9:05businesses past 10 million and three
325. 9:07businesses past 100 million into a
326. 9:09completely free scaling road map that
327. 9:11I've used to go from zero to one, zero
328. 9:12to 10, and zero to 100 plus. And so you
329. 9:15can click here and you can check it out.
330. 9:16Again, absolutely free. And since you're
331. 9:18a business owner, I appreciate you and
332. 9:19uh enjoy.