You Know What to Do. Do It. — 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. 0:16>> [laughter]
11. 0:16>> Right? And so
12. 0:18with this kind of valley of despair, I
13. 0:21call it
14. 0:22niche slapping. It's like don't make me
15. 0:24niche slap you.
16. 0:25>> [laughter]
17. 0:26>> Which is like when you have three things
18. 0:27going on, it's like let me like slap you
19. 0:30into just picking one. Because the thing
20. 0:32is is that any of them can work, but
21. 0:34none of them will work unless you pick
22. 0:36only one. Mhm. Because it's actually, in
23. 0:39my opinion,
24. 0:41an exercise in arrogance to assume that
25. 0:44you doing three things is somehow going
26. 0:46to beat somebody who's doing one. And I
27. 0:48can promise you the competitor who is
28. 0:50going to beat you is only doing that one
29. 0:51thing. And you think a third of your
30. 0:53time is going to beat theirs? No. It's
31. 0:55not going to I think it's arrogant. And
32. 0:57so there's actually like an under
33. 0:59there's like an underpinning of ego
34. 1:01underneath of this. And I say this to
35. 1:02somebody who did this. So like when I
36. 1:03had the launch business, I also had my
37. 1:05six gyms, I also had a chiropractor
38. 1:07agency, and I also had a dental agency.
39. 1:09And so I would introduce myself and
40. 1:10like, "Oh, I own lots of companies." But
41. 1:13I think one of the biggest
42. 1:14misconceptions when you're an
43. 1:15entrepreneur is not understanding the
44. 1:16difference between being an owner and
45. 1:18being the CEO.
46. 1:19And so they might hear that you have a
47. 1:21portfolio, they might hear that I have a
48. 1:22portfolio and be like, "Okay, well they
49. 1:23have a portfolio, so I must model that.
50. 1:25That guy's tall, I should play
51. 1:26basketball." Doesn't work that way.
52. 1:28Right? I should be So if I want to be
53. 1:29rich, I should fly private. Doesn't work
54. 1:30that way. Right? Um it's conflating
55. 1:33order.
56. 1:35And so
57. 1:37we must do these things in order to get
58. 1:39the outcome. We have to concentrate on
59. 1:41only one thing in order to get the
60. 1:43outsize return. And
61. 1:46that spreading of attention
62. 1:48especially when you're newer in the
63. 1:50entrepreneurial career, it's like you
64. 1:51already don't know so many things. How
65. 1:53do you now want to have three sets of
66. 1:55unknowns that you want to try and
67. 1:56conquer at the same time. And the the
68. 1:58fallacy of thinking is that I'm going to
69. 2:00try all of them and see which one works.
70. 2:03But none of them will work because
71. 2:05you're waiting to see which one will
72. 2:07work. Because you can force, in my
73. 2:09opinion, you can force one thing to
74. 2:11work. Provided, like I'm going to I'm
75. 2:13going to just assume basics like you're
76. 2:15selling you're not selling $5 bills for
77. 2:16$4. Like
78. 2:18you know, the normal economics of a
79. 2:19business. Like if if if if a real estate
80. 2:21business exists, there are other people
81. 2:23are making money. There are hair salon
82. 2:24businesses where people are making
83. 2:25money. There are lawn mowing businesses
84. 2:26where people are making money. You can
85. 2:27make money in all of them. You just
86. 2:29can't make money in all of them.
87. 2:30>> [laughter]
88. 2:31>> At the same And it is when you walked in
89. 2:33today and you sat down on the chair, I
90. 2:34said, "Like what's going on with you
91. 2:35professionally?" I remember what you
92. 2:37said. You said, "More of the same and
93. 2:38better."
94. 2:39Which clearly comes from your wisdom.
95. 2:41>> [laughter]
96. 2:42>> My infinite wisdom, right? Well, it's
97. 2:43just from from from from from suffering.
98. 2:46Um
99. 2:47the the 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 thing that you're
132. 3:50on right now.
133. 3:51And I think that's that people compare
134. 3:53year zero to year zero, but not year
135. 3:55four to year zero. And the thing is is
136. 3:57you actually we have a linear life. And
137. 3:59so we that is it's an unfair but true
138. 4:02comparison of the opportunity cost. And
139. 4:05every exceptionally
140. 4:07successful entrepreneur that I know has
141. 4:09just stuck with one thing for such an
142. 4:10inordinate amount of time. And I think
143. 4:12there's a quote by
144. 4:13I want to say Shane Parrish. He said,
145. 4:15"Um success is
146. 4:18doing the obvious thing for an
147. 4:20extraordinary period of time without
148. 4:22believing that you're smarter than you
149. 4:23are."
150. 4:24>> [laughter]
151. 4:25>> And it's just like you we we know what
152. 4:27we need to do. And
153. 4:30com- So, we don't need to make our lives
154. 4:32more complex. Complexity will come with
155. 4:34scale, I promise.
156. 4:36And so, just simply trying to do more of
157. 4:39what you're already doing well is
158. 4:40already hard enough.
159. 4:42Don't add anything else. And so, like if
160. 4:45you need to write some sort of
161. 4:45commitment of like I'm just going to
162. 4:47stick with this, then do that. But
163. 4:50the
164. 4:53what happens is when we're talking about
165. 4:54the levels earlier about like beating
166. 4:56the bosses,
167. 4:57so what happens is
168. 4:59you know how to beat boss one through
169. 5:01three
170. 5:02of of the game.
171. 5:04And so, then you just say, "Okay, well,
172. 5:06I'm just going to start the game over
173. 5:07and beat boss I mean this this time it's
174. 5:09going to be different." But then you
175. 5:11just get to level three again and then
176. 5:13you're stuck again. And so, people will
177. 5:15just keep getting up to level three in
178. 5:17new and new and new endeavors over and
179. 5:19over again because they never learn how
180. 5:20to get past that boss. And so, you just
181. 5:23have to confront the uncertainty of
182. 5:25knowing that you don't know how to do
183. 5:27it, but that you will figure it out if
184. 5:29you keep doing enough repetitions.
185. 5:31And that's where you talk to as many
186. 5:33people as you can. You see what they
187. 5:34said, you consolidate it all, and you
188. 5:36say, "I think this is the highest likely
189. 5:37path. It might not work, but I do
190. 5:39believe fundamentally that if we cut
191. 5:40people's hair well
192. 5:42and we do it for a long period of time,
193. 5:44we will have a thriving business. And if
194. 5:45we have a really good model from that
195. 5:47thing, we might be able to open up
196. 5:48another location. And if we keep our
197. 5:50costs down, we might be able to have an
198. 5:51actual model that we could either invest
199. 5:53our own capital or bring somebody else
200. 5:54and take it national. Right? Like all of
201. 5:56these like I have yet to find a business
202. 5:59that can't get to a hundred million
203. 6:00dollars a year.
204. 6:02That has a permutation of it that
205. 6:03exists.
206. 6:04You're a dry cleaner. Fine. Well, cool.
207. 6:06We'll build the model and either we're
208. 6:07going to license the model, we can
209. 6:08franchise the model out, we can get
210. 6:09outside investors, we can scale it
211. 6:10nationally, we can do it. But the crazy
212. 6:12goals are only crazy because people have
213. 6:14crazy timelines.
214. 6:15They're actually seen goals if you
215. 6:17extend the timeline out.
216. 6:18If you have a a true 10-year goal or a
217. 6:19true 20-year goal, almost anything's
218. 6:21accomplishable. I mean,
219. 6:23almost every multi-billion dollar
220. 6:25company is about, you know, they get
221. 6:27It's usually between like year six and
222. 6:2810 when companies get to kind of like
223. 6:30those big numbers.
224. 6:32And most people who are listening to
225. 6:33this are
226. 6:35five years into entrepreneurship, but
227. 6:36you're six months into the thing that
228. 6:37you've been working on right now. And
229. 6:39you keep restarting the clock for
230. 6:40getting to year 10 every time you start
231. 6:42over.
232. 6:44And I think that's the part that it took
233. 6:45me a very long time to figure out and I
234. 6:47think it takes a lot of entrepreneurs.
235. 6:48Like everyone messes around with a lot
236. 6:50of stuff in the beginning cuz you just
237. 6:51don't know what you're doing.
238. 6:52And so,
239. 6:53in my experience, it takes about five
240. 6:56years for most entrepreneurs that I know
241. 6:58to just like find something that works.
242. 7:00>> [laughter]
243. 7:00>> Like it like takes about five years to
244. 7:02figure out which way is north.
245. 7:05Yeah. And then it takes like another
246. 7:06five years. A lot of people that's it.
247. 7:08Like they they restart, they they they
248. 7:09go off crash and burn.
249. 7:11Um
250. 7:12and it takes another five years to build
251. 7:13something that can can create
252. 7:15generational wealth.
253. 7:17So, it's about a 10-year slog. And
254. 7:18here's the really hard truth about it.
255. 7:21If you have a job right now,
256. 7:24for almost all of that five years, you
257. 7:26quit your job because you don't want to
258. 7:27work as hard as you are and you want to
259. 7:29make more money.
260. 7:31And as soon as you quit, you will
261. 7:32realize that you are now going to work
262. 7:34way harder than you were and you're
263. 7:35going to make less money
264. 7:37for an extended period of time. The one
265. 7:39benefit is that you get to claim all
266. 7:41responsibility for how little you make
267. 7:42and how much you work.
268. 7:44Because you're like, "My boss is an
269. 7:45idiot, and it's me."
270. 7:47>> [laughter]
271. 7:47>> But, it's the truth. And I think that in
272. 7:50some ways having that
273. 7:52um
274. 7:53optimistic ignorance
275. 7:55is actually one of the really redeeming
276. 7:57traits of entrepreneurs.
277. 7:59And one of the really hard parts is that
278. 8:01the biggest jump you have to make gets
279. 8:03so immediately reinforced from the
280. 8:05freedom you have from being able to, you
281. 8:07know, chart your own path.
282. 8:11But,
283. 8:14that big success of quitting one thing
284. 8:16and starting another,
285. 8:18you need to immediately forget.
286. 8:20And I think that fundamentally that is
287. 8:22why so many entrepreneurs keep doing it
288. 8:24is because the first time you do it,
289. 8:27it's the biggest rush ever. You quit
290. 8:28your job, you do the business, and and
291. 8:30you get some some first traction, and
292. 8:32that for that first dollar that you make
293. 8:34when the new business, it's like the
294. 8:35best dollar ever, right?
295. 8:37But, it's such a strong reinforcer that
296. 8:40what does it reinforce? It reinforces
297. 8:42stopping what you're doing and starting
298. 8:44something else. And so, I think one of
299. 8:45the fundamental errors of
300. 8:47entrepreneurship is that sometimes the
301. 8:50jumping ship to start this thing is the
302. 8:52lesson that you need to immediately
303. 8:53unlearn, because after that, you have to
304. 8:56just stick with it for a very long
305. 8:57period of time.
306. 8:59Real quick, I'm going to show you the
307. 9:00exact 10-stage roadmap from zero to 100
308. 9:03million plus
309. 9:04that less than 1% of companies finish
310. 9:06I've now done multiple times. And so, I
311. 9:08can say with a lot of confidence that
312. 9:09these are the stages as head count
313. 9:11increases that you need to get through.
314. 9:13And I broke each of these down by eight
315. 9:15different functions of the business,
316. 9:16what the constraint feels like, like
317. 9:18what are the symptoms of it when you're
318. 9:19going through it, and then what steps we
319. 9:21actually took to graduate. And we've
320. 9:22done this across software, physical
321. 9:24products, uh service businesses, brick
322. 9:26and mortar, all of this, and it works.
323. 9:29And it's my gift to you. It's absolutely
324. 9:30free. And so, the link's in the
325. 9:32description, but you just go
326. 9:33acquisition.com/roadmap.
327. 9:34Just enter your info, and it'll spit it
328. 9:36right back to you all free.