And I was like, "I'm just a skinny Indian guy,
can't put on any muscle." Wrong!
I just wasn't eating enough and I wasn't working out,
but because I said that it became part of my identity.
Something I encourage a lot of entrepreneurs to think about,
I think a lot of people, they will go from their full-time job, quit,
they have very meagre savings and suddenly they're like, "this has to work!"
Well, now you've put yourself in a bad position. So, either
start it while you have a full-time job, do it on the side
and don't tell me you don't have time, you have time,
and the second thing is build up your savings,
your savings are gonna give you the runway or the flexibility
to try different things. A business is not easy.
Especially going from zero to one, it's pretty hard.
And if you're under a time crunch where you have like two months of cash left,
you're gonna start making bad decisions. Well, there's two key things that
stop people from moving forward. And
it stops them for months, years and even decades. So, the first one is “I don't have an idea.”
Oh, you don't have an idea? So what does that mean, you're just gonna
wait for an idea to fall down from the sky? I don't have an idea either!
You find an idea and you search out for it
and you generate hundreds of ideas and then you slice and dice them and test them.
So, that's number one, the idea that
a lack of idea is stopping you. That should never be the case.
There are ways to generate ideas and then test them for profitability.
The second thing is “I don't have any time.” Please give me a break.
You don't have any time? Yes, you do.
It's almost like if you say “I don't have time,”
that's a politically correct way to say “this is not a priority.”
Because no one can ever disagree with you and say, “hey you actually have time.”
It's sort of very politically incorrect to say. But if somebody says, “I don't have time.”
“Yeah, I'm really busy too man.” So, don't say that.
When you start using phrases to describe yourself in a negative way,
it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. So like I used to say,
“I'm just this skinny Indian guy.” I used to weigh 50 pounds,
I was very skinny, I was 50 pounds skinnier than I am now
and I was like, “I'm just a skinny Indian guy,
can't put on any muscle.” Wrong!
I just wasn't eating enough and I wasn't working out,
but because I said that it became part of my identity.
So when you say, “I don't have time,”
“I'm so busy,” or the worst, “I'm overwhelmed,”
then you become overwhelmed. So if you can fix those two things,
know that you can find not just one idea,
you can find hundreds of ideas. And the second things is you do have time.
The world is under your control, the world does not control you,
if you change those two things, you are very likely to succeed.
Okay, so I love to test
and it's just become a part of my identity, I just love it.
So, testing everything from introductions.
So, when somebody says, “what do you do?” What's your response?
-Well, it changes, let me think, I'm on the spot.
I would say I am a writer and a television producer,
I interview successful people and break down success for the rest of us.
-That's pretty good! Okay so, I can tell that
that did not happen by accident. You've worked to get that
cause it's super crisp. So, for me, people used to say, “what do you do?”
And I would say, “I'm a writer.” And they would say,
“cool! My uncle's son's nephew is also a writer.” I'm like, “he's not a writer, he's unemployed.
I am a writer.” So, I found that that was not working.
So then I said, “I'm an author.” And the response was 180 degrees,
they said, “an author? Really? You've written a book? What's it about?”
And now we have a conversation. So, you can, depending on what you are,
don't say “I'm a coach.” Nobody wants to talk to a coach,
who cares about a coach, what do you do?
And the approach here is you may not know the right way to say it at first
but throughout the day,
you introduce yourself how many times? Five times, ten times?
Just test it. Come up with three or four different responses
and try them out. And you will see
that most of them just people are like, “eh alright, I gotta go get a drink, bye.”
And then one or two of them are amazing. Think about it most of us go through our entire
lives never testing our introduction. So, you can apply that to
“where do you work?” “What do you do?”
“Where do you live?”
I mean, there are a million different kind of common answers
and you can also test it with the questions you ask.
So think about the questions you ask when you meet someone.
“Where do you live?” Who cares. Tell me something more interesting.
And so, these are kind of things that are just fun,
I find them really fun, but it's to me, it's just like a puzzle.
Let's try to find out what is an interesting question that's gonna
get us to know each other a little better. Basically,
the way I think about myself is there's this term called cognitive miser.
We have limited cognition, limited willpower. And I don't wanna spend that limited muscle
trying to find my keys or wondering what to eat.
I just, I want that stuff solved. So, automation for me is everything from
what to eat, so my food is ready, I open the fridge,
it's all there and ready to go. Knowing what to work on,
it's all on my calendar, that's a huge thing. I wake up and I just look at
my calendar and I'm like, “ah, I know exactly what to do.”
And I build in breaks. I know that I'm more productive in the morning
and on and on. Automation is basically taking something that you
constantly find yourself thinking about or working on
and if possible building a system around it. You may still have to do the work,
you may still have to cook, but automation could mean you
cook on Sundays and you portion it out or whatever, whatever the case may be.
I think automation is one of the most powerful psychological things you can do.
It doesn't just help you once, it helps you forever.
I think that discipline gives you freedom. I think that automation allows you to be more
creative and free. So for example,
how do I write so much stuff or how do I write all these jokes in
these e-mails and stuff like that? Part of that is that
I have a set time, it's every Monday,
Wednesday, Friday, it's constrained, there's a time set and I have my story toolbox.
Now, I'm sitting in there and I'm 100% present. Another example from the diet world,
if you are eating correctly or really healthily 90% of the time,
if you go out with your friends and they wanna get cheesecake or chicken wings,
do it! Great!
Cause you know that the rest of the time you're eating healthy.
So, that actually allows you to be more present, more free,
it's not taking away, it's actually adding. Same thing with bills, by the way,
that's one thing I talk about in my book.
Do you know how many people waste their time paying bills and transferring money over?
That's something that you should not be, I spend less than one hour per month.
You can automate that, it's in chapter five of my book,
it's so easy and I don't care if you use my book or anyone's book,
stop spending hours and hours on your personal finances,
automate it once and you will reap the rewards for the rest of your life.
Other people are gonna tell you you need webinars, you need this kind of double opt-in e-mail system,
like that's all tactics. Talk to people.
Most entrepreneurs are in their head and they say, “I'm busy, I don't have an idea...”
and they've been doing that for months, years, decades.
That's the wrong approach. Go out and ask five other entrepreneurs you know,
“hey listen, can you walk me through your journey?
I'm not trying to get anything, I just wanna know how you did it.”
And just listen. And then talk to five prospects.
People that you think might be interested in something you have to offer.
Don't try to sell them. In fact, tell them, “I'm here to sell nothing.”
Just listen. And if you can do that,
if you can go out and have 10 conversations in two weeks,
you're gonna be lightyears ahead of where you were today.