Your problem is lack of resourcefulness

[G-Man]

Can't believe I'm the guy posting a Tony Robbins video, but I've found the statements he makes here to be extremely true. I had a black swan earlier in the week, and currently at a pretty low point, but I've discovered it's put me into a much more creative, open-minded, and generally a$$-kicking state.

 

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[Andy Black]

I'm not sure about the "Burn the boats" thing, but I agree that our success depends less on the resources at our disposal than on our resourcefulness.

 

[Andy Black]

Here's some "burn your boats" threads:

• www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/burning-your-boat-vs-playing-it-safe.51069
  
• www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/burn-those-F*cking-boats.68928

 

[G-Man]

I'm not sure about the "Burn the boats" thing, but I agree that our success depends less on the resources at our disposal than on our resourcefulness.

Just like anything Tony Robbins says, you can cut out 50+% of it and be fine. The single sentence "The problem isn't your lack of resources, it's your lack of resourcefulness" really hit home with me.

For context: I'm part of a company that's basically run out out money, and scraping the bottom of every barrel for cash. I'm selling shit. I'm stringing my credit cards out on balance transfer offers. I've emptied a bank account. I called my parents and asked for 10k for goodness sake, and I'm 31 years old. On the contrary, in the early days, the company was way over-funded, and practices that where fundamentally unsustainable grew up in the process. I'll spare everyone the dumbass details, but we literally burned through hundreds of thousands of dollars that we shouldn't have.

I just wonder how many times as entrepreneurs we think "If I could just get PE firm X on board", "If I could just budget for more salespeople", "If I could just get a break at that one retailer", when the reality is, if we sat down and thought about it, not only is there a solution that involves no or less money, but makes the business more easily scaled in the future.

 

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[PureA]

A wise man once said... "You're most important resource is resourcefulness"

 

[MJ DeMarco]

but we literally burned through hundreds of thousands of dollars

Ya mean mahaogny desks, unlimited Pringles in the breakroom, and custom branded water bottles? I say this not in jest, but in literal experience.

 

[G-Man]

Ya mean mahaogny desks, unlimited Pringles in the breakroom, and custom branded water bottles? I say this not in jest, but in literal experience.

• 10 people to do the work of 4
• Company meetings to decide with flavor of LaCroix should be in the fridge
• Parties every week, company trips to those restaurant movie theaters in the middle of weekdays
  
• Never negotiating on slotting
• Printing on the back side of labels that the customer never effing sees
• Paying a consulting company to do the equivalent of psych evals every time we hired someone, even if for warehouse work

After my first week in the office seeing this shit, I thought I had stepped into the twilight zone. The first time people started arguing over LaCroix flavors I LOLed because I thought it was sarcasm.

This is the type of insane shit that happens when a company is overfunded. It almost experienced death by money. The only good thing to come out of this is that when I put money in in the future, I'll get the units at a deep discount.

EDIT: The biggest thing in all of this is slotting, which is why I realize now how important being resourceful is. When a big retailer says "You have to pay 100k to put the product on the shelves", if you have the money, you just pay, instead of working with the buyer on creative solutions.

 

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