Welcome fellow traveller!
Gonna be a long blog post so I’ma just dive straight in.
So the ultimate aim… the ultimate goal is financial freedom.
Financial freedom equals:
· More time with family
· Be a great provider
· More time to do what I love doing
These all sound great, but I also think that while the goal at face value seems to be about having & acquiring, I think the more important underlying goal is about being & becoming… Being and becoming the individual able to achieve the goal…
Because being & becoming the individual capable of financial freedom (in an ethical manner, of course) means:
· Better leader for your family
· It requires you to face your own shadow, so you are a more wholistic and spiritual individual
· Bring VALUE to the world. The more you bring value to humanity, the more you earn.
But… how do I do this?
One of the most influential videos I have ever watched was this one from Jordan Peterson, called ‘Take Aim, Even Badly’
This video came to me at a point in my life where I was lost, and this life philosophy had actually been my salvation. As mentioned in my previous blog post, here’s how I applied this life philosophy;
So what’s the issue? Why am I writing?
Well, the issue is this;
As I went through the journey applying this, there were some MASSIVE blinders which I had which made me stagnant… as if I was wandering around in the desert in circles.
Here’s all my flaws.
Take Aim, Even Badly - Flaws in my approach
Yeah, this approach did serve me well. But where I went wrong was that I did not iterate enough.
I did not self-reflect enough.
In Steven Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, the second habit is to begin with the end in mind.
Think of a chess player; not just an ordinary chess player, but a grand master. When an amateur makes a move on the board, they may only be thinking 2-3 steps ahead, but a grandmaster thinks 15-20 moves ahead.
Entrepreneurial life is a game of chess. You need to know where you’re headed. Here’s some wisdom from Alice in Wonderland which I’ve referred to in previous blog posts;
Back to why I’m a potato; I took the philosophy ‘Take Aim, Even Badly’ without thinking too far ahead in the game. I thought to myself, “I just want 100k subs, then figure out monetizing my audience outside of ad revenue from there.”
What a silly, silly way to think.
Because if I HAD A PLAN of WHERE I WANTED TO GO, understanding the macro goal WILL INEVITABLY have direct trickle-down influence on my micro day-to-day actions… it will even influence HOW I structure my content… what type of content I do… other things like BUILDING A NEWSLETTER, FUNNELS, etc.
It is quite frustrating to think I’ve faltered pretty hard in this regard.
So I asked myself the most important question; WHY.
Why did I do this…
Or more importantly…
What are the THINKING PATTERNS which have led me to doing the slaughterhouse?
The E-Myth Revisited
Luckily, my answers came when I came across this book; the E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber.
A book which I’ve heard about COUUUNTLESSS times when listening to entrepreneurial real estate podcasts. So I knew it’d be good.
To try boil down the main concept presented in this book, which is that to be a successful business owner, you need to employ these three parts of yourself in harmony.
You need to wear all these different hats when you’re the head of your business, but you need to be able to balance it.
It needs to be balanced accordingly.
But what most people do, as the book says, is get trapped just being a technician.
So they end up unbalanced like this;
And this is what happened to me.
So when I ‘took aim, even badly’, me approaching it as “I’m just going to make videos until I hit 100k subs and hopefully figure out my business approach then”, it’s clear that my approach missed this aspect. I was acting as a lone wolf… I was just being a ‘technician’ with the one task of making videos. I was lacking balancing out the manager and the entrepreneur:
· Entrepreneur; Know the whole vision of where the business/company is heading on a macro level.
· Manager; takes the vision from the entrepreneur, and breaks it down to ensure that the day-to-day tasks completed by the technician are in alignment towards a greater vision.
· Technician; knows what to do in the day-to-day because the manager and technician have already figured out the most what they need to do.
So, upon reading this book I had to find our how to be a better ENTREPRENEUR and MANAGER to ensure that the TECHNICIAN’S DAY-TO-DAY TASKS are in ALIGNMENT WITH THE GREATER VISION.
Here’s what my inner entrepreneur and manager told me (read it as if its me talking to me lol)
Entrepreneur:
· You cannot rely solely on Youtube ad revenue to fuel your business. This CANNOT be your main source of income.
· Youtube is only a funnel.
· There’s this idea that if you want to build a business you need two things: 1) product to sell. 2) audience/traffic to sell it to. You’ve been doing 2) in some ways… but need to think about 1) too.
· You’ve only been building the audience/traffic, but you have NO FUNNEL whatsoever… You need to study how other entrepreneurs play the game, how they have audiences enter the funnel through your videos… then to your website… then to your email list… then to you newsletter… to your landing page… etc…
Manager:
· Stephen, you keep saying James Clear’s quote “you do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.”… but where’s your system for building a business?
· Wheres your system for NURTURING CREATIVITY and CREATING CONTENT??? You don’t even have that, and you expect to have a profitable business? Hahahaha
· What systems do you have in place for your finances? You spent 40 hours on taxes, you’re an unorganised scrub, your disorganisation is messing with your day to day creativity because your mind is cluttered,… you can’t even make systems in place to run your life,… and you think… you think that you can run a profitable business?? Which is going to require the implementation of A LOT MORE COMPLICATED. SYSTEMS compared to your everyday life??? Hahahaha you are silly.
So yeah, pretty clear I’m lacking in a lot of areas. That current version of me was not yet ready for the abundance he was after. I need to be and become the version of me capable of handling this wealth, of handling a business.
Roadmapping - a necessary entrepreneurial skill
Gotta bring this one up again cos it’s so good… Alice in Wonderland quote LOL;
So, we about to get esoterical.
In this video ‘Ten Dimensions Explained’ They talk about this phenomena how at each given moment there are an infinite amount future ‘branches’ which are influenced by your own thoughts and actions.
So the question is; where are you going?
If a ship were to leave port and set sail, wouldn’t it be a good idea for it to know its destination?
I’ve applied this in a lot of different aspects of my life, like in real estate where I’d map out EVERY SINGLE SCENARIO I CAN THINK OF.
So, too, in the same way, must I do this practice more than ever, especially when TRAVERSING THE UNKNOWN AS AN ENTREPRENEUR.
I need to ALWAYS have in mind a potential roadmap…
So back to the idea of ‘Take Aim, Even Badly.’
I need to have A FEW DIFFERENT, WELL THOUGHT OF AND WELL CALCULATED AIMS, then choose one and go with it.
As Jordan Peterson says, a rough first draft is better than no draft at all.
You’ll see how I will apply this in my next blog, when I talk about my blueprint.
Systems - a necessary manager skill
I want to ask you, if I told you. To build the tallest pyramid you can, what other dimension will require to grow in proportion to the height of the pyramid?
Answer: the BASE of the pyramid.
I realised this;
Upon reflection, if I got 100,000 subs by luck, it would have CRUSHED ME.
I would not have been ready for it.
It’s like how 70% of lottery winners end up going broke. They go broke because they have not BECOME THE INDIVIDUAL with the CAPACITY for wealth.
So, in a similar way, the way I perceive my shortcomings and not having the subscriber number I want is because it’s the universe telling me I was not ready, I was not yet the individual with the capacity to have 100k subscribers.
So, in order to become the person, I get the vision from the ENTREPRENEUR of what I need to do when I do have the large audience, and how to monetize it and turn it into a business.
Then the MANAGER will swoop in and BUILD THE BASE… build the INFRASTRUCTURE and FOUNDATIONS… BUILD THE SYSTEMS REQUIRED which will have the CAPACITY for reaching the heights the entrepreneur has specified.
This involves a lot of UP FRONT work, which we’ll talk about in the next blog post too.
But just as a sneak peak, some of the up front work was the website, setting up email lists, setting up systems for lead generation, client database, my own personal ‘kaizen’ where I analyse each part of my business and where it can improve, etc.
What game are you playing?
Have you watched this movie?
If not, you should, it’s a great entrepreneurship movie.
And there’s one quote which struck me the most out of the whole movie…
“You don’t seem to realise what business you’re in… You’re not in the burger business… you’re in the real estate business”
This was the greatest perspective shift I had when I found this out (I originally found it from reading Rich Dad Poor Dad).
What’s awesome about this is that I had a moment like this which struck like an annunciation;
“You don’t seem to realise what type of creator you are, Stephen… You’re not in the video creator business… You’re in the writing business.”
I came to this conclusion mainly through influencers such as Dan Koe and Jordan Peterson.
The CRUX of my content are my IDEAS.
How I ARTICULATE these ideas through SPEECH.
Which evolves from WRITING.
WRITING is the base foundation from which all my content emerges.
And is what I should put all my focus on.
This is a win-win. Because not only does practicing your writing help you convey your message and ideas and make you a better influencer and communicator (which is a top skill for entrepreneurs)… but writing also clarifies your thinking, as Jordan Peterson would say.
I always looked up to Jordan Peterson, a true wordsmith who is one of the most articulate speakers I’ve ever heard, the way he connects ideas and goes through his lectures is a sight to behold. But how did he get there? How do you become as good as he is at what he does? His answer? You write.
Write write write write write.
There is no secret answer.
I need to write a whole lot. Get better, improve, learn how to persuade and influence through my writing… and everything else will follow.
I thought I needed to be a pro at videography, super fancy edits, etc. and all that stuff.
But… it depends on the type of creator.
I’ve been so influenced by so many different creators that I didn’t know what I was doing, I was in analysis paralysis trying to do it all. But what I should’ve been focusing on is my writing.
ALSO – this has spurred me to JOURNAL MORE upon learning how powerful writing is.
And it was actually through the journaling, through the self-reflection that I realise all my faults and failures which I’ve mentioned in this blog and the previous one.
Your level of success will never exceed your level of personal development.
As I develop myself, understand my flawed thinking patterns, bad habits and other flaws and failures, then the more I will have the capacity to harness success.
“As within, so without.” – The Kyballion.
Conclusion
If you got this far then I thank you for taking the time to read my blog.
And stay tuned for the next one because it is going to be a banger!
