When I was a kid my mom was on welfare, and my dad was in jail
And I was surrounded by other drug addicts in my family who would steal money from my mom?
Needless to say I didn't have many people I could look up to as a good example
But I decided if I couldn't find a mentor in real life. I was gonna find one in a book
I'm Derek Halpern
And you're watching social triggers the place entrepreneurs and executives learn to get ahead in business in life and in this video
I'll share seven secrets of wildly successful entrepreneurs these are secrets
I learned from years of reading and I'll show you exactly how I use these insights to get ahead in business in life
Even when I had all the cards stacked against me
When I first turned to books I got obsessed with reading biographies and memoirs of successful people all types of people
Athletes even though I hate sports executives entrepreneurs
Musicians heck I'd even read about successful criminals because I didn't have any of those in my family either
It didn't matter if someone was great at what they did I wanted to learn more fast forward to today
I'm the founder and sole owner of a very successful company
And these seven secrets that I learned helped to propel me to where I am today. So what are these secrets?
Let's dive right in the first one is you want to develop thick skin when you're looking to do something different?
Different from the status quo different from what you're doing right now different from the prescribed path of what you should
Do there will be no shortage of people who will try to stop you it might be a family member might be a colleague
but in many cases it will come from
strangers who share their unsolicited
Opinion about what you plan to do in the world and the best thing you can do is laugh about it easier said than done
I know, so people always ask me. How do you have such thick skin and the answer is desensitization? Here's a little trick
I learned from John D Rockefeller senior the world's first billionaire in tighten the Rockefeller biography terno wrote in
General Rockefeller kept his family apart from Standard oil mathers with one curious exception at the breakfast table
He'd sometimes read aloud samples from the reams of abusive cranked male that has whomped his office perhaps
He did this to make light of the threats or to take the stain from controversy seems, silly, right?
maybe but if you subscribe to social Triggers
You'll see that I do this regularly I make fun of bad
Unsolicited advice in emails videos and more and when you do this regularly it no longer bothers you it actually becomes fun one thing
To know you should never do with the intent just to make fun of the person
You should always find a teachable moment
As an example when I recently made fun of a dumb way someone tried to poach my customers
I shared it for one reason
I wanted to show people what not to do and then I showed them what to do instead now to the next secret
Cut the line in the Steven Spielberg biography by Joseph McBride
They share an interesting conversation
Spielberg had with his dad Steven said I want to be a director and his dad said well if you want to be a director
You've got to start at the bottom you got to be a gofer and work your way up
That's when Steve shot back. No dad the first picture. I do. I'm gonna be a director and that's
Exactly what he did. He skipped the work your way up part and just became the director in life
There's the path everyone takes and then there's the other
Path if you take the path most people take you're going to need to outwork people along the way you'll need connections
You'll need genetics for excellence
You'll need to work your way up the ladder or you can take the other path and doing it successfully
Means you can't cut the line
But I have a word of warning don't cut the line unless you're actually ready to do it if you try before you're ready
It's not gonna end well spielberg did everything in his power to ensure that he could cut the line when the time was right
He would often call out sick from school just so he can stay home and learn how to edit movies, so yeah
He cut the line but by the time he cut the line he already had the experience
He needed to do it, and that's the secret
let's keep going third Secret is you want to focus on High-value work John Best the third Took a
Struggling furniture company that was getting demolished by offshoring and built it to 90 million dollars in sales
The best part he employed people in the united states instead of offshoring his labor
What was one of his big secrets factory man author Beth Macy quoted John is saying?
Pay somebody else to do your emailing and I padding if it frees you up to do the heavy lifting of money man
And he couldn't be more right when you're an entrepreneur an executive or a salesperson
You're going to find there some work you do that leads to massive results, and then there's other work you do that feels important
but doesn't really move the needle as an example you could either a
Create a new product or service that you can start selling the people knowing this product will generate sizeable revenues or be
you could spend time answering emails booking flights and other low value work if you want to build a
Multi-million dollar business you need to spend all of your time on things that lead to sizable revenues
And that's it but Derrick
You can't hire anyone if you're not making any money, right?
You're right. You can't and maybe you shouldn't but when I look back on my business my biggest regret is hiring late
I watched my first product had some revenue come in
But I was personally handling a countess used
Billing problems and stuff that a support person could do I told myself well I can't afford to hire yet
But in reality I did have the money and had I just hired someone
Immediately I could have went back to making more money plus with things like search rule available
You can hire people for as little as three hundred and ninety nine dollars per month
So you really have no excuse remember pay somebody else to do your eye padding and your emailing for you?
Focus on the money next and the fourth Secret is you're the big tall?
Accepted one of my favorite businessmen is jay Paul Getty if you're not familiar with him
He was allegedly the world's richest man for almost two decades
He made his money in oil and in his autobiography he wrote I submit that the successful businessman
Must and does take responsibility for his actions
It is the meteorites and the outright failures who blame everyone and everything but themselves for whatever goes wrong that
is why they are meteorites and failures and
That's the truth when things don't go our way our default reactions to look outward and blame something else or someone else
But if you have any hope of succeeding you need to start looking inward even if you feel like it's not your fault
I was having lunch with my friend were me and I was having an issue with one of my
Freelancers at the time and I was describing the problem to him, and I remember saying well
I guess it was my fault
I should have and I remember him saying that's smart for you to look at it like that it appears
He does the same thing he takes accountability. I take accountability so does getty now
It's your turn next is you want to climb the right ladder to switch it up. This is a piece of advice
I got from someone who was an executive officer at a company. I used to work for here's what happened
I worked for an international insurance company, and I noticed that actuaries got promoted quickly in insurance companies
So naturally I was thinking about becoming an actuary luckily
I was friends with one of the main actuaries in the international area so I asked him for advice
He told me yes, you can excel fast as an actuary
But do you want to be an actuary?
I said no, well it looks like you'll be on a fast path of doing something. You don't want to do
He was right I quit that job a few months later
And I started my own company
Why because I wanted to climb the right ladder make sure you are to the six secret is what got you here won't?
Get you there
There's a famous expression
and I first read it because it was a title of a book and it was will guide you here won't get you there and
it's true when you're growing as a person and
As an entrepreneur you must leave behind things that made you successful in an effort to become more successful
Here's an example in Jack Welch's autobiography. He wrote about the time he got promoted to the general manager of plastics
Here's what happened a writer wanted to feature him in the general electric
Magazine known as the Monocle and Jack said when the writer came out to pittsfield for our interview. He referred to me as Dr.
Welch and I shot back. I don't make house calls so call me jack
I was now ready to act as a businessman and not an engineer. So I was anxious to bag the Dr.
Welsh Moniker welsh wanted to be a businessman not an engineer
He knew if he wanted to get to the next level he had to drop the whole doctor thing
and that's what he did if you're unfamiliar with Jack welch from 1981 to
2001 he increased the value of general electric by more than four thousand percent and amassed a personal net worth of allegedly
720 million Dollars and this brings me to another point. It's not only about will got you here won't get you there
It's also about what got them there won't get you there
Here's what I mean when you're starting out
You might compare yourself to another entrepreneur, and maybe you'll copy the strategy for growing their business
But if they're at a different level than you
It's not going to work and finally the seventh secret is zig when others zag
I read a book called Providence by Laini, Salsbury, and it was a story about how a conman and a forger
Rewrote the history of Modern art here's what happened an art forger and a con man partnered up to flood the market with fake paintings?
Here's the thing though they never copied the most popular Masters
They went for the masters who were a little bit below the radar and instead of focusing on creating great work
They focused on forging the provenance of that work if you're unfamiliar with provenance in the art world
Provenance is when you trace the painting back from current day to the artist through bills of sale art
Exhibitions and the like and that's what they did they forged the provenance
And that's how they succeeded at what they did for years
Now the bottom line is this guy was a criminal and people shouldn't commit Crime
They got fine went to jail and worse, but there's a lesson in this story
It's about zigging when others zag you see most people were looking to create forgeries and they were looking to create amazing
Forgeries, but this team didn't do that
They just focused on forging the provenance instead they zigged other's eggs, and it worked
What's funny is I did something very similar in my business when I lost socialtriggers the echo chamber
Preached the importance of more content and sure while more content could help people build their business
I knew that it was good advice only for people who were good at creating content day in and day out
but most people I knew warrant that's when I started preaching the idea of people should create less and promote more and it was a
smashing success
While most people couldn't create great stuff day in and day out
They could create a great piece of content maybe once or twice a month then they could focus on promoting it
Again and again and again Ziggy when others ag and it worked you can do the same so ask yourself
What's generally accepted in your industry is it possible to do the opposite and make it work?
You can become known for that, and that's it
Those are the seven secrets of wildly successful entrepreneurs as I glean from years and years of reading to quickly recap here
They are again you want to develop a thick skin. We want to cut the line you want to focus on High-value work
You're the big poll accepted. You want climb the right ladder
What got you here won't get you there, and you want to zig with others egg now. I have a question for you
What's up these seven secrets that you find most insightful?
How do you plan to implement it in your business in life leave a comment?
I'll read Every one plus
If you know someone who's building a business that could benefit from these tips?
Be sure to pass this along you'll be helping them out and me too and you haven't gone to the social Triggers man
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