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George Campbell & Jim Packard – Eliminating Self Sabotaging Behavior: How the Power of Habit Is Essential to Goal Achievement (AoL 193)

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Self sabotaging behavior is a common theme when it comes to personal and business development (or the lack thereof). Whether it’s the lack of willpower to get healthier, the determination it takes to go through college, or the focus it takes to build one’s business, there’s one thing that is certain when it comes to accomplishment: setting a goal is one thing – but actually achieving that goal is something completely different.

In this session of the show, Ya’el Johnson and I get to talk to two completely different kinds of individuals who have made it their passion to help others figure out how to achieve goals like this.

Through their app called the Consistency Chain, they’re helping tons of people build good habits in place of the ones that have lead them to where they are now.

In their recent book built on the same premise, The Consistency Chain for Network Marketing, authors George Campbell & Jim Packard suggest that the main reason that people don’t do well with network marketing is that they simply haven’t built the right habits to actually grow their business. Interestingly, George goes on to say that he was only successful when he realized he was the common denominator between all these opportunities.

In this conversion, we explore how they came to that conclusion and some of the concepts one should consider when trying to achieve anything in this world – let alone building a network marketing business!

Enjoy!

SPECIFICALLY, YOU’LL FIND OUT MORE ABOUT:

  • As enthusiasts of the industry, how did George and Jim get into Network Marketing initially? 12:55
  • How do you know when you’re working with the right business when it comes to network marketing? 21:18
  • How did Jim & George realize they were on to something when they felt the 80/20 rule applies to those who are successful in network marketing? 26:24
  • How do they give themselves milestones on a regular basis to keep them going in their journey? 30:17
  • What are some of the ways that people are using the Consistency Chain app in their daily lives? 37:17
  • What are some of the things George and Jim are looking forward to moving forward in 2021? 42:10
  • Who are Jim and George’s personal influencers and teachers? 45:23
  • What’s the biggest plot twist they’ve seen in their day to day life? 48:43
  • Is there a particular gift they like giving others? 50:31
  • What is something they’ve become good at saying no to? 52:33
  • How does someone realize they’re living their own personal mission? 53:59

ITEMS and PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

George and Jim Online: Website, Facebook, LinkedIn
Cohost: Ya’el Johnson
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Marshmallow Test
Seinfeld
Jay Abraham – Getting Everything You Can Out of All You Got (Amazon Link)
Jim Rohn
Dale Carnegie

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

SHOW NOTE EXTRAS:

Joe Malarkey at the United States Bowling Congress’ Event

Joe Malarkey on Customer Service

Tom Chenault interviews Jim and George (MLM Application)

Margo Lovett and Deborah Thorn interview Jim and George (Traditional Business Application)

Thanks for Listening!

Thanks so much for joining us again this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below!

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the top of the post.

Also, please leave an honest review for The AoL Podcast on iTunes! Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and we read each and every one of them.

If you have any questions feel free to email them over via the email mentioned in the show or by our contact form.

And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Castbox, iTunes, Stitcher, PodBean, and/or Google Play Music. It’s absolutely free to do so.

A huge thank-you to you guys for joining us!

Cheers!

best nootropics

Prady Tewarie – Peak Performance in a Bottle: How Body Building & Business Systems Lead to the Best Nootropics Based Supplement (AoL 159)

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When it comes to peak performance, most experts on the matter suggest that we learn how to care for ourselves, plan, and execute accordingly. However, even the most disciplined of us will have problems from time to time. Whether it’s a physical ailment or a mental breakdown, we all have issues from time to time. Thankfully, there’s some supplements on the market that can really impact your mental state. In fact, some of them contain some of best nootropics in existence.

If you’re not familiar with term nootropics, Veronica and I weren’t either before this interview. However, the way that our guest, Prady Tewarie, described them, it almost sounds too good to be true! Something better than coffee?! Blasphemy!

In today’s conversation, Prady shares with us his journey in starting his business Azoth, one of the fastest growing nootropic supplement companies today. What’s cool to me is that his entire journey in starting his business has been rather organic. He didn’t force it by starting a business first and then finding a product. In fact, he did it the way that it should be done.

If starting and growing a business based on your interests is something you’re wondering if you should do, let Prady’s story inspire you to give it a shot.

Enjoy!

SPECIFICALLY, YOU’LL FIND OUT MORE ABOUT:

  • After spending so much time going after a law degree and becoming a lawyer, what inspired Prady to become an entrepreneur? 9:32
  • How did he realize that fitness was essential to being in the right state of mind for his business, partners, and clients? 11:46
  • Where did the idea for Azoth come from? 14:56
  • How did Prady come to realize that systems were critical to building his business? 21:44
  • How did Prady find himself getting involved with Real Estate Investing? 33:10
  • What is he looking forward to in the end of 2019 and beyond? 40:40
  • If he could add one book, one song, and one film to the national curriculum, what would they be? 42:33
  • One thing under $100 that has changed his life? 44:07
  • What’s a believe, behavior, or habit that he’s started in the last 5 years that’s helped him improve his life? 46:16
  • What’s something he believed when he was 18 but now feels is inaccurate? 47:44
  • What’s the secret to achieving personal freedom? 49:19

ITEMS and PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

SHOW NOTE EXTRAS:

Prady and Justin Hall on Having the Right Info on Supplements

Enlightened Millennial: Why Hard Work Is Not Enough!

Should I Quit my 9-5 and Start My Own Business?

The Reason You’re Not Achieving Wealth

Thanks for Listening!

Thanks so much for joining us again this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below!

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the top of the post.

Also, please leave an honest review for The AoL Podcast on iTunes! Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and we read each and every one of them.

If you have any questions feel free to email them over via the email mentioned in the show or by our contact form.

And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Castbox, iTunes, Stitcher, PodBean, and/or Google Play Music. It’s absolutely free to do so.

A huge thank-you to you guys for joining us!

Cheers!

get stuff done

Focus at Work – Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing and Get Stuff Done!

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In the last post, I wrote about how deep focus might be the key to actually get stuff done in your craft or industry. Focus on the 20% of the effort that makes you the 80% of your income. You simply don’t have the capacity to do everything under the sun.
Since that post, I’ve had a few readers of that post message me and ask why I was going against the traditional advice of building an online business.

And as I thought about it, I realized that while I might be going against the more traditional advice of building a digital business, there are examples in the real world that suggest that less can be more.

So in this post, we’re going to look at just a few such examples.

Is Less Always More?

Now you might be thinking, there are plenty of examples of businesses that have grown after they offered more products and services. One such example is Amazon. Without knowing their history, you might think that they’ve always sold all the products and online services that they offer today.

However, this wasn’t always the case. When the company first started, it was an online book store based out of Jeff Bezos’ garage. Did he know that it was going to become what it is today? Probably not. But as the company offered more products and brought more people on to help manage those products, it is definitely an example of “More is More”.

Sometimes Scaling Doesn’t Always Work as Expected

But for every Amazon who scales correctly from the beginning, there’s also going to be examples where adding more to the menu might not be the best course of action.

Example 1: McDonald’s

Take McDonald’s for example. I remember in the late 00’s when McDonald’s was losing out on customers because people started to get smarter about what they were eating. It was during this time that chains like Panera, Starbucks, and Subway grew like bandits. In fact, it was pretty common to hear about places in large cities that had a couple of Starbucks on the same street.

These companies were eating McDonald’s lunch. So what did the golden arches do in response? They grew their menus and model to include some competitive products to what these other places were offering. By 2013, it had 145 items on its menu.

This was nuts and completely unsustainable. It’s no wonder that they were losing money at this point.

In an attempt to right the ship, they hired their most recent CEO, Steve Easterbrook. What Steve ended up doing was removing the items that weren’t selling as well and went back to the basics of the business. This seems to have worked because in the last year or so, their stock has actually risen.

Example 2: Apple

While this might not be the best recent example, it wasn’t too long ago that Apple was the tech company to watch out for – as an investor and a competitor.

In the Beginning…

Personally, I’ve always been an Apple user. My first computer was one and currently I’m writing this on a Macbook Pro.

During that time, the company has seen its ups and downs. I remember when I was first learning about computers, I found out the hard way that Windows 95 would not work on my Mac. How could this be? I thought everyone was going to be able to use it!

Nope, I was in the minority. Windows based PCs were what everyone else had. I can’t tell you how many conversations I had in high school answering questions about why I had a Mac… even when Steve Jobs came back as the CEO!

As I got involved in the Purdue University Mac Users Group (PUMUG), I started to learn how awesome of a group Mac users actually were. I had found my people! But interestingly, we were still a small group. All the clones had been taken off the market by that point. Those of us who were still users were because we were creatives or simply loved the Mac.

The Epic Growth of Apple

However, it was also during this time that the iPod was released. And interestingly, this was about the same time that I started paying attention to the stock market. I remember in 2001 watching the AAPL stock rise almost 50% until 9-11. 

Of course, stocks were down for just about everyone at that point. But as new and better versions of the iPod came out, their stock rose. And then, the point where everyone became familiar with Apple was in 2007 when the iPhone debuted. Wow… I really should have got some shares then. (Unfortunately, I thought I had already missed the boat. Ha!)

But there’s a point in me telling you this personal story of watching Apple rise. No one would have believed it would happen when I first got my computer – an Apple Performa 575. Had they stuck around trying to compete directly with Microsoft PCs, I think the company would have folded. Even to this day, but especially back then, they were known to jack up the price on products that were matched by less expensive PC options.

But it was because Steve was able to focus on building the next best thing (as he originally did with the original Mac) that they were able to be as great as they did during his time as CEO.

On a Smaller Scale

So, there’s a couple of examples of large companies that righted their ships after bloating to try and be everything to everyone. But it’s not something that just companies that size have to deal with. There are much smaller companies that struggle simply because they don’t focus on keeping the main thing the main thing.

And because they often don’t have the necessary resources or connections to keep going, they tend to not have the time to get their act together in time.

Example 3: Marsh

One such example is a local grocery store chain here in Indiana which was named Marsh. Like many local groceries, it folded in the last couple of years. It couldn’t find its niche in the market. I believe the main reason is that they tried to be everything to everyone. Instead of focusing on having its stores in certain profitable locations, it kept trying to keep open stores that were underperforming due to local competition – no matter what the cost.

Even after the company folded a couple of years ago, there are still locations that have not been bought by other chains. When I see them, I’m reminded of the struggles they had before going belly up. 

Interestingly, though, the places that were bought by other chains seem to be doing pretty well if not better than they did while they were under the Marsh banner. Some were bought by Kroger while others were bought by a regional chain called Needler’s. In fact, the Needler store in downtown Indy is considered by many to be one of the best groceries around!

Had Marsh realized that they should just cut anchor and focus on these stores that were actually making them income, they might be around yet today!

Action Steps

So, hope that gives a little more perspective on why it’s important to focus. If you’re good at building sales funnels, do that until you can outsource it. But don’t try to do that AND build a Fulfilled By Amazon (FBA) business AND build a podcast AND build a YouTube channel.

Pick one, get a handful of clients. Once you’ve done that, scale that business using ads on social media. Then from there, you can think about doing something else when the first job is sustainable.

deep focus

Profit or Popularity? How Deep Focus Might be the Key to Your Success

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Deep focus and work is a topic which is really popular these days. However, it tends to go against the prevailing advice on how to become an online entrepreneur/personality. Personally, I’ve seen a lot of benefit by incorporating it in my schedule. In this post, I’ll share with you how I learned the hard way about the benefits of deep focus as a creator.

Setting the Stage

If you’ve been following the blog and podcast, you’ve probably realized that I’ve cut back on how many of each I publish. For a few months now, I’ve been on a schedule where I post a blog post one week and then the next week, I publish an interview.


But that wasn’t how I did things when I first started my online journey. In fact, I posted a blog post and an interview each week.

Even though I felt like I was doing what I was supposed to do as a new entrepreneur/thought leader, I didn’t feel like I was getting anywhere. But I kept pushing through for two years, believing I was doing what I was supposed to do.

However, towards the end of that two year period, I started hearing and seeing signs that I had to change things up.

And eventually those signs lead to the discovery of the M-6 Business Evolution Plan.

Signs to Change

So what were these signs? Here’s three I can definitely remember:

The Importance of Deep Work and Focus

One of the earliest signs I can recall is hearing Jordan Harbinger’s interview of Cal Newport discussing his book Deep Work. In the interview, they discuss why focusing on your work for long periods of time is the only way to create anything meaningful. The reasoning behind this is because it takes awhile for our brains to snap into the right gear to create. If our days consists a lot of checking email, posting to and checking social media, you’ll never get into this deep work or deep focus state.

I knew I wasn’t getting into that deep state because I was EVERYWHERE!

Profitability vs Popularity

The second sign I remember was when one of our guests mentioned that her coach constantly has to ask her a simple question: Do you want to be profitable or do you want to be popular?

It had never occurred to me that in the online digital space, there was a choice. I thought that the only way to create revenue was to be popular. The more people who knew of you, the more chances you had to make a sale, right?

Apparently, that’s not the total idea.

Even more interesting is that in another interview we had, our guest mentioned how there are plenty of popular people on the web who can barely afford to keep their own business doors open. In fact, there’s way more of them than there are people who have followers and have an income from that following.

Start Where You’re At!

The third big sign was during my research of this whole thing about having a Personal Mission.  This course of interest started when I heard David Anderson share about how important it is to him in his interview in session 92. I knew it was a piece I was missing. Uncover Your Personal Mission is the result of this 6 month study to figure out what my starting point should be. I now fully believe it’s imperative for someone to know where they’re at

Using the Right Road Map

So, it’s interesting how traditional online business advice suggests that you should be everywhere. I think it makes sense in the long run. But the market is so saturated with other entrepreneurs and thought leaders, that we have to realize we don’t have a chance in that game by ourselves. There’s just so much work we can do in a given day.

So what’s that mean for us? What’s our course of action? Well, this is where we need a new road map.

Road maps for entrepreneurs are nothing new. Fizzle has theirs, Pat Flynn has his in Will It Fly?, and then there’s the one featured in the documentary Generation: Freedom.

There’s a lot of good content in each of these. However, I think they get ahead of themselves a little in the beginning stages.

So, let’s look at this new road map:

The M-6 Business Evolution Plan

There are 6 parts of this new plan which can be used simultaneously with the previously mentioned road maps.

However, the main difference is that this particular plan, again, focuses on early growth and sustainability of your business. So, once you get to a certain level of success, then maybe it’s a good time to start “Being Everywhere” as Pat Flynn talked about way back in session 28 of the SPI Podcast. Because, remember, in today’s market, you have to have a team to compete with the other names out there because they probably have teams themselves! 

So, here’s the new plan:

Mastery of Self

The reason that I start with Mastery of Self is because there are a lot of examples of folks who jump into a business idea because the marketing of a specific course said they’d have the potential to make all kinds of money doing that particular business. All they have to do is follow a step by step method.

Problem is, many people get burned out of these half-baked businesses because they didn’t do the inventory on themselves or they didn’t have the right frame of mind starting the business. They might have expected awesome results in a week or month and now it’s way beyond that point.

Mastery of Self is important because not only do we need to figure out who we are, but where we and our skills fit in the world.

From there, as we naturally build on ourselves and our skills, we have the potential for amazing growth.

So, for example, if you didn’t know that you’re good at writing copy, then you wouldn’t know that you should be helping people do that. Without doing what it takes to figure out where you are in relative to everyone else, you might decide that your “calling” is to sell products on Amazon. At that point, any instructions sound like good instructions but they just don’t get you anywhere you want to be.

Monetize Your Natural Talent

Before we even think about hiring anyone else to help, scale in other ways, or saying our expertise is helping people do something, we need to make sure that we can successfully add that value while being paid for it.

If you do the homework on yourself, you already know what you’re naturally inclined to help people do. If you are just starting a business, instead of working for free, start at a monetary number you feel comfortable asking for your services. Then, as you get more clients, you can play with the numbers and find out what’s asking too much or just right for what you’re offering.

Here’s a secret: The longer you do things for free, the more people think you’re A.) Training Perpetually or B.) have a bad service or product.

Also, you’ll want to look into is a book called Win Without Pitching Manifesto. In this book, you’ll learn why it’s important to position yourself in a certain way and how you can successfully do that. If done right, you’ll become the buyer and your clients will have to prove to you why they need your help!

Another thing that makes this whole process even easier is starting to work on a script. It’s ok to use scripts while doing sales meetings/calls/webinars. That’s one of the biggest things that made Jordan Belfort, the Wolf of Wall Street, as good as he was! His team used the script he used to make calls!

Market for Sustainable Business

Let’s say that you have an awesome product and you just happen to be really great with getting the word out there – say a video of yours went viral.

Is that a good thing when you’re first getting started?

I’d personally say that it’s a “Hard no.”.

Why?

Well, let’s say that your offer goes viral. Sure, that might be great in a Kickstarter situation or with a course (which you shouldn’t have at this point…), but if you’re offering a service or real product, you’re simply not going to have the capacity to keep up.

So, you want to find those first 3-5 clients who are ok with a price point that’s been proven. Once you do that, then it should be time to take it to the big market! You should have enough extra money to put into advertising on social media.

Mechanize Your Process to Scale

There’s something to be said about systems when you’re moving to the big market. The better our systems are when we’re working on scaling, the bigger that scaling can get before we have to hire someone to help us manage it.

So, Facebook ads, Instagram Ads, LinkedIn ads, Google… wherever your clients are, make sure you keep track of all the work you’re doing. What ads work? Which don’t? What audience works? Which doesn’t? Where should you put in pixels in your funnel? How long should your funnel be? Etc. 

Make sure when you’re doing this work that you’re only changing small parts at a time and you keep track of those changes. Changing everything at once doesn’t get you the experimental data you need. For example, if you’re changing an ad, only change the copy, the audience, or the image – NOT ALL THREE!

Also, don’t go overboard with your systems either. There’s a fine line between being creative and creating chaos.

Make Use of Other’s Talents

There’s going to be a point where we can’t do everything in our business anymore. Eventually we’ll have to either hire someone to help as an employee or bring on a contractor.

This is when we have to do what John Maxwell says all the time: “Play to your strengths, and hire help for your weaknesses.”

Just as you know yourself and how you fit into the world, the ideal people that you bring on your team should have that figured out as well. This means, besides them taking over a job you don’t want to do (or have the time to do) anymore, that they also have similar values and are internally motivated to do the job as well as possible. 

You’re not doing yourself or them a favor if you feel like they’re not committed to the vision and mission of the company.

Multiply Your Business

As we continue to scale, this is when we can go out even further. We can find other ways to market ourselves and our team’s talents. 

There might be products that you couldn’t do on your own, but now that you have a small team, you might be able to start a video series on YouTube or a podcast that goes out 3 times a week.

Also, this might be the time to package your skills into a course if you feel the demand is there. That way you can still get paid for your skills, but don’t have to put in the time factor into it.

There’s all kinds of ways to multiply your business. But just so you know, you can’t expect to start here. You have to actually have a proven system of success. I wish I had known that before I started my podcast, but hey, at least you guys understand why only publish one session every other week now! 🙂

Action Steps

As a lot of my posts go, you fall somewhere into this list. You’ll need to figure out where.

Personally, I thought I was going to be a podcaster and be like Pat in a year or so. Well, that’s not going to happen. For one, even when he started his podcast back in 2010, he already had a fairly good number of people following him on his RSS feed for his blog (check this out for numbers at the top!). I didn’t have that when I started my show. Another thing is that there weren’t nearly as many online entrepreneurs in the market. Nearly 10 years later, the market has been completely saturated.

This plan consists of parts of the more traditional way of doing things, true. But, we have to realize that if we don’t start from the foundation of figuring out where we fit in the world, then we really don’t have much to build our future success on. 

We can’t scale from nothing.
So, put in that foundational work if you haven’t. Find out what interests you and how you can add value to others. Again, you can start with the guide if you need help.

the power of focus

The Power of Focus – Why Intentions Aren’t Enough

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Many people talk about the power of intention. It sounds good, but it’s kind of a vague phrase. Intention in what? Intention to having an awesome life? Being successful?

People intend to do all kinds of great things. But they keep getting sidetracked and never get to the destination they intended to.

Here’s an analogy: it’s like having a scope on a firearm and not using it while taking the shot. The person holding the gun intends to the hit the target, but they choose not to use the best tool they have to do so. Sure this is cool in a video game, but in reality, it’s just bad practice.

They don’t focus.

To Focus, We Need Clarity

In the last 6 months or so, I’ve been making it a point to figure out how people made it big before the advent of internet. In other words, how did people become recognized as gurus or thought leaders before there were all these platforms to circumvent the traditional routes?

What were the traditional routes?

After speaking with a handful of upcoming guests on the show, I’ve come to realize that the best methods of building a successful business start off with:

Knowing yourself,
knowing your industry,
and knowing how you can help others in it.

Leverage Your 3 P’s

In my resource, Uncover Your Personal Mission, I refer to these as your 3 P’s:

Passions,
Purpose,
and Process.

If you haven’t downloaded the resource yet, when I refer to Passions, I’m talking about the things you find interesting. Topics that you naturally gravitate to. Skills that you’ve been naturally learning.

When it comes to Purpose, I’m referring to how you interact with those around you. What is a group of people you feel a bit of a calling to or you love to help?

Then, your Process can be thought of like this: what is the unique way that you can help people in that group? What do they need help with the most?

For many, the first two Ps are pretty straight forward. They’re your Why and What. But your How is something that many of us don’t necessarily know how to determine on our own. In fact, many of us don’t do the right work to figure out how we can truly help others.

In fact, often times, we’re creating content or performing work similar to what we’ve heard others create.

This simply isn’t how you go about finding your How.

Stop Living Vicariously

Interestingly, I’ve been doing some research to get ready for a guest I’m happy to announce will be on the show in an upcoming episode: Jordan Harbinger. I listened to a couple of his recent interviews where he and his guests were talking about two topics that I felt were pretty interrelated. Focus in a Chaotic World (with Cal Newport) and Why Self-Help Makes People Feel Terrible (with Gabriel Mizrahi).

Talk about a coincidence!

In both conversations, the idea came up that many of us who are in this creative entrepreneur/thought leader space are exercising a simple “monkey see, monkey do” strategy. We see how certain people have risen to where they are and we try to be like them to get the same results.

We feel that we have to do everything that the successful people are doing, or we won’t be successful ourselves.

The problem is that when a generalist approach simply isn’t as effective as a specialist’s approach.

As generalists, many of us just starting out don’t realize that these big names with the thousands of followers actually have their own teams. Or if they don’t have a team, they’ve just been doing what they’ve been doing for so long that they now have reached a point where they have exponential growth.

Trying to duplicate those results as someone relatively new to an industry, shouldn’t be what we’re focused on.

What to Focus On

Instead of trying to do all these different tasks to try and get your name out there and recognized, you need to focus on a few things. The things that really are a value for others.

For example, Jordan has specifically focused on his show for… 12 years.

Funny thing is he still hasn’t really used the different social medias like many of us think he should based on his influencer (fyi – he hates that title) status.

Sure, in the last year he’s completely rebranded himself from scratch, but he did that because he had the connections in place to do so. People knew him from the previous 11 years of being a great host on his old show. They knew what his niche was and, to an extent, continues to be.

If we want to be as successful as Jordan or other influencers that we look up to, we have to find our own track to do it. No amount of learning how to do Facebook ads or learning some other skill is going to have an direct impact on your success. What has worked for others, more than likely won’t work for you.

However, if you start out on your own path of creating value for others, you’ll make the right connections along the way. Find out what’s needed and find a solution for those needs.

Action Steps

So, here’s a bit of advice that I learned all the way back in 2012. We collectively need to practice Idea Extraction (a phrase coined by Dane Maxwell who I had on the show in session 56) in our businesses. We can’t just sit back and hope that we can find what other people need by being on our keyboards or browsing on our phones all day. We need to actually get out there and find out what’s needed. If we can do that within an industry we love utilizing skills we have (or can learn) then, we’ll have it made.

To get you going on the right path, here’s 5 questions that anyone who’s starting a new business needs to be able to know about their clientele:

  1. What keeps them up at night, staring at the ceiling?
  2. Are they upset about something? What do they find frustrating?
  3. What do they desire the most?
  4. Are there any trends that suggest something will change in their lives or work?
  5. What other solutions have other companies tried selling to them. Were they successful?
  6. Are there any weird idiosyncrasies about this group of individuals. For example, if they’re an engineer, do they use a lot of jargon in their working day? If they’re a performer, maybe they tend to work better in chaos?

Once you get an idea of what it’s like to live in the life of someone in the group you want to work with and could probably write a journal entry for them, then you’re onto something. My recommendation is do this at least 7-20 times so you can definitely start seeing a pattern of issues.

Once you get a fix for one of those issues, then you can easily take it to others and start being known as “the person who does X”. Then, from there, you’ll start to build a following as more people hear about your successes. Just don’t forget to constantly update how you do things. I’m still learning everyday!

Quitting Without Regret: A Critical Key to Successful Creativity

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If you’re like me and many other creatives that I know, your mind never stops coming up with new ideas that you believe could add value to other people.

Chances are, you probably have some sort of journal or list somewhere that you can write down ideas on as they come to you.

Just last night, I was listening to Michael O’Neal’s (host of the Solopreneur Hour) interview with Pat Flynn about Pat’s new book, Will It Fly?, and a question came up for Pat that I’m not sure I ever truly heard him answer before until he answered it here.

Many successful entrepreneurs talk about 90 day sprints in which they focus on learning and doing one new thing. However, what Pat answered was very interesting. He said that instead of cutting up the year into 90 day sprints, he actually focuses on two new things for the entire year.

That honestly blew me away. That seems like such a small amount.

But if I think about it, that’s what he’s done. Just kinda going back through his income reports, I can think about what he was up to during that time. For example, in 2013 he wrote his first big ebook, Let Go. In 2014, he was all about systematizing and hiring “fuller” time help. He even spoke of it several times that year. That enabled him to start making and releasing more stuff including “Ask Pat” and doing more videos on YouTube in a series called SPI TV. And in 2015, he was all about going big and expanding his brand as a whole – becoming a regular speaker and embracing his “CEO” role (even though he’d say he doesn’t like that title too well!).

I’m sure Pat wanted to do all of these things for several years. If you dig, you can see he started things here and there. (For example, there’s evidence on his YouTube channel… his oldest videos are 6 years old.) He didn’t have the capacity to do all the things on a regular basis until recently. He knew how to quit without regret. 

Knowing Your Capacity

Let’s face it, unless we have a team, we’re not going to be able to do everything we want to do. Really. And even then, we might not be able to. (That’s why companies continue to grow.)

There’s two reasons for this, one is that you simply have 24 hours in a day. Even if you’re a workaholic like Gary Vee, you’re still only going to be able to do so much. The second is that you come pre-programmed with certain personality traits, and there’s just going to be some things that you’re better at than not.

Even if you’re a workaholic, there’s a good chance you might risk burnout and/or miss out on other aspects of life.

As Angles of Lattitude co-host Laila recently pointed out in a ‘scope of hers, “you have to know what you REALLY want”. While she was able to work herself into working at NASA, a lot of what she did to get there forced her to skip out on other aspects of life. Similarly, while she’s always wanted to be an Professional Engineer and recently had started studying to take the test to be, she realized that it wasn’t for her… at least not right now. She’s currently starting her own brand, working a Fast Track program with Beach Body, helping with the podcast, and on top of that, she’s working part time as well. She simply didn’t have the capacity to add the test on top of all of that.

I think that this was a great choice on her part – even if, for her, it was a really painful decision. She re-realized what her capacity was and she made the decision to not go over that limit.

The Big Misconception

So, at this point, you might be thinking “Ok, that’s great for Pat and Laila, JC. But honestly, I can’t afford for my startup to fail. That’s why I HAVE to try so many things. I need to play it safe. One of these things will work.”.

Will it? Do you think that will help? To me, that sounds like a recipe for failure.

Pat and Laila are simply two recent examples I can think of in the entrepreneurial arena.

Let’s jump into the sports world for a second. This past Sunday was the Super Bowl. Do you think that Peyton Manning ever tried to become a great golfer in the years that he was becoming a legendary football player? No. He was too busy studying game film and working on his own fundamentals to become another kind of athlete. However, that would have never have crossed his mind as he’s been a pedigree quarterback his entire life.

Here’s another example: do you think that anyone that’s running for Presidency of the US in 2016 has the capacity to become president if they were focused on keeping any other kind of job outside of a political one or a business that ran itself? No way!

I’m simply getting at this simple point: There might have been people who were able to burn the candle on both ends. But if you really want something to be hugely successful, you’ll probably need to put all of your effort into that one thing.

When you start to pile up too many commitments on your plate, you have no choice but to start letting other tasks and ideas fall through the cracks.

Taking the Next Step Without Regrets

So now that I might have twisted your arm into realizing that you might have to let off the gas on some of your current efforts and/or ideas, how are you going to do so? For one, you don’t want to be considered a quitter. Secondly, you don’t want to truly give up those ideas.

I believe that there are a few good ways that you can set your mind at ease.

  1. Declare Victory and Move on. Realize that whatever you were working on was merely a project. If it was merely a project, and you learned something from it, declare it as a victory. Move on. For me, I’ve been pouring some time developing a couple of products since re-launching the site back in May. One was a guide to writing resumes and cover letters. The other was building the ultimate guide to connecting with anyone.After doing some groundwork and some idea bouncing and verifying, I realized that these items weren’t going to be as useful to you guys as I hoped. What I learned is that if I have any future product ideas, I really need to ask you all what would be a good product. (FYI… I do have one in the works now!)
  2. Prioritize Them. You can only do so much. If you need a visual, think of your capacity as being the top of a traditional stove. There are 4 burners. If you cook with a stove, you probably know you use the front two burners the most. They’re the most active. The back two are merely for more passive secondary items.Many times, I think about my efforts like this. I’m going to have two projects that are taking up most of my time. However, there are some things that while I would love to do them now, I’m going to have to make them secondary. Secondary items can not require the focus of a front burner item. If it does, I’m just going to have to remove it all together. (The last thing I need is to burn the house down, right? aka burnout.) Right now, when it comes to building New Inceptions, my front two burners are being used for building weekly content and building real friends and allies in the creative space. The back burners are building the New Inceptions audience and a product for them. I’m not doing anything else that isn’t related to accomplishing these four tasks.
  3. Share the Responsibility. Teams don’t have to be made of employees. You can make a voluntary team of like minded people who are going after the same goals. The main difference is that employees work for an income. Volunteers work for a feeling of purpose and belonging. The co-hosts of the Angles of Lattitude podcast are all volunteers. However, they realize that we’re all going in the same direction: to have our own brand, credibility, etc. As the show continues to gain traction, they’ll be more and more recognized as a contributor. Eventually, the audience will start seeking them as authority figures beyond the show.

 

This Week’s Challenge:

In today’s world, it might seem like a weakness to give up on something you’ve set out to do. You might have phrases in the back of your mind that are repeating, such as “quitters never win” and “not quitting is half the battle”. But are those things really true? I’d argue that quitters DO win. I believe that the best entrepreneurs – the best professional creators – do know when to quit. In fact, they do it all the time. They know what they should be focusing their time, energy, and money on and they quit the rest.

What should you quit doing? What should you postpone? What should you be spending more time focusing on?

Let us know in the comments below this post.