This thread has been a long time coming and I am going to make a claim that might be uncomfortable for some, but not untrue.
Before we get there, I preface this with the fact that I have a belief in the entrepreneur as a force for good. Despite the world vilifying them, the world needs value creators more than any other kind of person. I have a belief that everyone, and particularly the types of people that sought out a forum like this one, have greatness in them. Call it limiting beliefs, call it mindset, whatever, some people rise to a bigger challenge and others simply toil away hoping something good will come of their toil.
By greatness, I am talking multi-millionaire entrepreneurship and beyond. This isn't just billionaire ambition stuff, which I indeed have. No, this is about building something bigger than just you and your efforts. Not having to settle for a shitty website anymore. Not having to do your own books. Not having to work harder just because your business is bigger. I could go on and on for days. This is about making the most effective self possible and shedding beliefs about business that are holding us back.
Something bigger isn't JUST FOR OTHER PEOPLE... It can also be FOR YOU... If you are willing to accept it of course. There is a mindset that the greats in this world are great because "they just are." That is patently false and really what's left of many of our external locus beliefs. Remember locus of control is a spectrum, not binary. It may be thinking on an order of magnitude higher than we are used to, but the fact remains the same. It's not luck, it's not genius, and it is not a skill they were born with.
Elon Musk wasn't born with the innate ability to build marketable electric cars and land rockets on barges. Steve Jobs wasn't born with plans for the iPhone. Sam Walton wasn't born with the skills to build the world's largest retailer.
These skills were universally discovered by the greats as first, SOMETHING THEY NEEDED, and then DEVELOPED into what LATER became greatness.
There is another claim many will make... "I am just going to do this (insert something super small and easy) for a while and then, when I have enough (insert skills, resources, whatever they believe they don't have enough of yet), I will go after my big idea" as if this little business will somehow prepare them for something cooler by osmosis. Ladies and gentlemen, there are young multi-millionaires and billionaires in this world. They didn't wait, and it wasn't osmosis.
What was it?
So as a foundation... If you want to change something.... If you want to make a difference.... If you want to make progress that truly matters in your entrepreneurial journey.... You need to accept the following: THE ENTIRETY OF THE WORLD'S RESOURCES, SKILLS, PEOPLE, WHATEVER... IS AVAILABLE TO ME, IF I CAN ORGANIZE THEM TO MY END.
Every single great in the history of entrepreneurship operated under some form of this assumption. They may not have ever put words to it, but THAT is how they built. THAT is how their businesses became bigger than them.
Nitpickers may try to prove that wrong, but they can't... So we are moving on.
Ok so... "BIGGER THAN YOU" is the point of the exercise here. I had a KBRS show called "The 1000 Hour Workweek," it was a jab at the 4 Hour Workweek... Basically the notion is that the truly wealthy businesspeople of the world have full-time hours worked, to their end, by hundreds or thousands of people... Willingly.
I have had other shows where I talked about how there are two kinds of wealth. Monetary, of course, and INFLUENCE. Influence is the focus here, because many entrepreneurs have NONE and none of us have enough.
The belief that with business growth comes more work for you is also false. How could it not be? How could ANYONE grow a business to tens of millions of dollars per year if EVERYONE has the same 24 hours in a day? The answer is this very force at play. Their businesses are bigger than them.
It works with any business...
Who works harder?
A.) Someone that owns and operates a small plumbing company He has a receptionist and one truck. He goes out on 5-6 calls per day, orders new inventory, keeps the books, makes sure the website is updated, and finally goes home.
OR
B.) Someone that owns a plumbing company, doesn't go out on any calls, and LEADS an organization of 20 trucks and 25 plumbers EACH going out on 5-6 calls per day.
I know who...
The theory is solid. Bigger than you means PEOPLE!
OK, we are done with theory. What about practice?
Now comes the challenge. @Mathuin posted a bang up thread the other day that inspired one of my newest radio show episodes. His thread detailed how one entrepreneur got the ball rolling and eventually built the kind of business we are talking about here. The baby step that made the next stuff happen. The first revolution of the snowball.
www.thefastlaneforum.com
Based on this, I believe there is immense power here and it works with any business... It also works for anyone at any stage in their business...
I know how amazingly some of my contacts have worked out in my entrepreneurial journey... We could all use more.
MY IDEA: THOUGHTFULLY choose, research, and contact one new person per day with some kind of goal in mind.
It could be getting them on the phone and picking their brain. It could be working some kind of strategic partnership. It could be putting some kind of deal together. It could be to make a new friend in the industry. It could be to learn pain points, discovering needs. Whatever.
The most effective entrepreneurs in the world have great people in their network.
There's a chance that 2/3 of the people you contact don't answer or even tell you to F*ck off. That's ok... The people that you do meet could change everything.
So my personal goal is this: 1 new outreach per day, 5 days a week, for a month. Not some canned sales email, no, something individualistic. Something singled out for them and a good reason to contact them.
This is quality 100x higher than quantity. Make every outreach count and give every single one your very best effort.
This is probably a 30 minute per day task. Everyone can find 30 minutes in a day. Given the thread above, there is a chance that someone you meet along the way could change absolutely everything for your business. If this doesn't get results for many of you that choose to join me, I will be SHOCKED.
Furthermore, I intend to make this into a lifelong habit if the power I think is there, truly is. I can see this being 30 minutes we can't afford not to spend this way. It is also FREE.
Who is with me?
Accompanying KBRS episode to come shortly.
Before we get there, I preface this with the fact that I have a belief in the entrepreneur as a force for good. Despite the world vilifying them, the world needs value creators more than any other kind of person. I have a belief that everyone, and particularly the types of people that sought out a forum like this one, have greatness in them. Call it limiting beliefs, call it mindset, whatever, some people rise to a bigger challenge and others simply toil away hoping something good will come of their toil.
By greatness, I am talking multi-millionaire entrepreneurship and beyond. This isn't just billionaire ambition stuff, which I indeed have. No, this is about building something bigger than just you and your efforts. Not having to settle for a shitty website anymore. Not having to do your own books. Not having to work harder just because your business is bigger. I could go on and on for days. This is about making the most effective self possible and shedding beliefs about business that are holding us back.
Something bigger isn't JUST FOR OTHER PEOPLE... It can also be FOR YOU... If you are willing to accept it of course. There is a mindset that the greats in this world are great because "they just are." That is patently false and really what's left of many of our external locus beliefs. Remember locus of control is a spectrum, not binary. It may be thinking on an order of magnitude higher than we are used to, but the fact remains the same. It's not luck, it's not genius, and it is not a skill they were born with.
Elon Musk wasn't born with the innate ability to build marketable electric cars and land rockets on barges. Steve Jobs wasn't born with plans for the iPhone. Sam Walton wasn't born with the skills to build the world's largest retailer.
These skills were universally discovered by the greats as first, SOMETHING THEY NEEDED, and then DEVELOPED into what LATER became greatness.
There is another claim many will make... "I am just going to do this (insert something super small and easy) for a while and then, when I have enough (insert skills, resources, whatever they believe they don't have enough of yet), I will go after my big idea" as if this little business will somehow prepare them for something cooler by osmosis. Ladies and gentlemen, there are young multi-millionaires and billionaires in this world. They didn't wait, and it wasn't osmosis.
What was it?
So as a foundation... If you want to change something.... If you want to make a difference.... If you want to make progress that truly matters in your entrepreneurial journey.... You need to accept the following: THE ENTIRETY OF THE WORLD'S RESOURCES, SKILLS, PEOPLE, WHATEVER... IS AVAILABLE TO ME, IF I CAN ORGANIZE THEM TO MY END.
Every single great in the history of entrepreneurship operated under some form of this assumption. They may not have ever put words to it, but THAT is how they built. THAT is how their businesses became bigger than them.
Nitpickers may try to prove that wrong, but they can't... So we are moving on.
Ok so... "BIGGER THAN YOU" is the point of the exercise here. I had a KBRS show called "The 1000 Hour Workweek," it was a jab at the 4 Hour Workweek... Basically the notion is that the truly wealthy businesspeople of the world have full-time hours worked, to their end, by hundreds or thousands of people... Willingly.
I have had other shows where I talked about how there are two kinds of wealth. Monetary, of course, and INFLUENCE. Influence is the focus here, because many entrepreneurs have NONE and none of us have enough.
The belief that with business growth comes more work for you is also false. How could it not be? How could ANYONE grow a business to tens of millions of dollars per year if EVERYONE has the same 24 hours in a day? The answer is this very force at play. Their businesses are bigger than them.
It works with any business...
Who works harder?
A.) Someone that owns and operates a small plumbing company He has a receptionist and one truck. He goes out on 5-6 calls per day, orders new inventory, keeps the books, makes sure the website is updated, and finally goes home.
OR
B.) Someone that owns a plumbing company, doesn't go out on any calls, and LEADS an organization of 20 trucks and 25 plumbers EACH going out on 5-6 calls per day.
I know who...
The theory is solid. Bigger than you means PEOPLE!
OK, we are done with theory. What about practice?
Now comes the challenge. @Mathuin posted a bang up thread the other day that inspired one of my newest radio show episodes. His thread detailed how one entrepreneur got the ball rolling and eventually built the kind of business we are talking about here. The baby step that made the next stuff happen. The first revolution of the snowball.
EXECUTION - The Cold Email that started a $500m - $1B Company
I've taxed this from a post on r/Entrepreneur by u/harrydry that I hadn't seen posted here after a quick search. **Post begins** Back in February 2010, Jason Cohen had an idea: A new Wordpress hosting service, that would help with speed, scalability, and security. He now faced the challenge...
www.thefastlaneforum.com
Based on this, I believe there is immense power here and it works with any business... It also works for anyone at any stage in their business...
I know how amazingly some of my contacts have worked out in my entrepreneurial journey... We could all use more.
MY IDEA: THOUGHTFULLY choose, research, and contact one new person per day with some kind of goal in mind.
It could be getting them on the phone and picking their brain. It could be working some kind of strategic partnership. It could be putting some kind of deal together. It could be to make a new friend in the industry. It could be to learn pain points, discovering needs. Whatever.
The most effective entrepreneurs in the world have great people in their network.
There's a chance that 2/3 of the people you contact don't answer or even tell you to F*ck off. That's ok... The people that you do meet could change everything.
So my personal goal is this: 1 new outreach per day, 5 days a week, for a month. Not some canned sales email, no, something individualistic. Something singled out for them and a good reason to contact them.
This is quality 100x higher than quantity. Make every outreach count and give every single one your very best effort.
This is probably a 30 minute per day task. Everyone can find 30 minutes in a day. Given the thread above, there is a chance that someone you meet along the way could change absolutely everything for your business. If this doesn't get results for many of you that choose to join me, I will be SHOCKED.
Furthermore, I intend to make this into a lifelong habit if the power I think is there, truly is. I can see this being 30 minutes we can't afford not to spend this way. It is also FREE.
Who is with me?
Accompanying KBRS episode to come shortly.
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