It’s important to pull yourself out of the day-to-day workload that plagues us all each day. It’s been over a year since I’ve done this for myself. After this weekend, I realized how crucial it is to take a step back from your everyday work and find opportunities to gain new business insights while intentionally thinking bigger.
I get it, this is easier said than done. It’s extremely hard to step away when you’re responsible for handling client meetings, checking off business tasks, tackling client or customer requests, balancing internal department needs, and pushing your team to hit short term targets.
Before I took a 1 year hiatus from events, I was going to some sort of business event about once every two months and it was amazing. In fact, I attribute much of our massive growth to what I learned in all of those events (which contributed to our 173% of revenue growth over the past year – applying and implementing what I learned).
Let’s get one thing straight, I’m not saying to take a vacation. While those are great opportunities to also think about the business, that’s not what we’re talking about here. Sure, you probably deserve it – we all do. But if you’re anything like me, a vacation is just a change of scenery for where I hold my meetings and set up the computer.
This weekend I got back in the saddle of business events and attended Brandon Dawson’s 9 Figure Boardroom event in Scottsdale, AZ. I learned some things and knew I absolutely HAD to share them with you because I promise you, they are game changers.
Expand Your Thinking and Learn Something New
You have to continuously attend business events that get you in front of other like-minded entrepreneurs. It’s pretty wild when you think about just how secluded we all are day-to-day. The people around us are likely not running their business at levels larger than ours or may not even have their own business.
Other types of events to join are ones that expand your thinking. It’s wild what happens when you step out of the norm and put yourself in a room with other big thinkers who are doing and accomplishing bigger things than you are! You’ll get some valuable business insights and walk away with knowledge you didn’t even know you needed.
The first person I met at this event had a 4 year old business doing $11M in revenue, I sat at lunch with someone who owned a very substantial business worth $56B – yes, with a big ass B. It was absolutely amazing.
What I came to realize is that all these people doing bigger and better things than I am currently are just normal and amazing people wanting to do bigger and better things in the world to fulfill their purpose and help more people in the process.
It’s insanely beautiful to experience first hand. Not only that, their words are incredibly validating.
Scaling a Business is Hard
This was one of the biggest and most validating takeaways I got – running and scaling a business is HARD AF. All of the speakers talked about how you never quite know if what you have on your hands is a success. Imagine that! We’re talking about speakers with companies in the $100M’s and others valued over $1B.
It resonated so much with me and I’m sure it does with you because it shows you that it’s okay to feel like things aren’t working to the highest level you know is possible. But get this, if you had no problems in your business, it means your business isn’t growing.
Here’s the thing I learned from Brandon long ago, every business hits a breakpoint and at each breakpoint comes new challenges and problems. If you don’t level up your problems, you aren’t growing. Chances are, you are shrinking if that’s the case.
Get yourself some new bigger problems. I’m on the prowl for bigger problems!
Everything Rises and Falls on Leadership
Whew. This was a big one.
I went to the event with the intention of figuring out what kind of leader I wanted to become. It’s something we should all be working on no matter what position we’re in.
If your business isn’t growing or you are struggling to create new problems (or find great people) – look in the mirror and point at the person in it. It’s your fault. Great employees don’t work for shitty leaders.
That’s why a lot of my focus now is on how I lead our teams because I want to help push our team to new heights while in doing so, help them to achieve their biggest personal, professional and financial goals. That’s a big win-win all around!
There are so many types of leaders out there, I can’t tell you which one to become, but what I did learn who I wanted to become – an empathetic leader that pushes their team to reach their goals while also working hard to reach company goals and setting my team up for success to do so within the confines of our business.
For financial goals, we do this through urging every employee to be a sales person and open up commissions to each and every one of them. There’s no cap on commissions – so your salary is literally whatever you want it to be.
I’ve always led by example – doing everything I’d ask a team member to do. I’d love to see an employee out work me! What’s great is I have one that has proven their ability to outwork me and you know what it did? It pushed me to work even harder. Funny how that works!
If you’re interested in improving your leadership skills, here are a couple of people I’d recommend checking out and their books:
- John Maxwell – The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership (and all his other books)
- Brandon Dawson – Nine-Figure Mindset
Growth Happens on the Other Side of Fear
Take risks. Constantly. You took a risk when you started your business, you need to continue taking risks. It means spending money on things that will directly grow your business even if you aren’t quite ready to or to go to events that are slightly outside your means and finding a way to make it possible.
It doesn’t have to be monetary either, one of the biggest risks I took over this past weekend was to talk to as many entrepreneurs making more than $10M in revenue as I could. For a huge introvert, this was hard for me! My wife – Asha – took even bigger risks and raised her hand every single chance there was a Q&A to ask questions and get noticed.
Step out of your bubble, take risks, and see your business grow.
Other ways to implement this – start the project you’ve been thinking about for ages, go to the meetup you’ve been putting off for months, speak on stage at a chamber of commerce event, get on a podcast and speak about what you offer, film a video reel and release it on your favorite social media networks.
Just do something! You’ll come through the other end so much stronger and capable of more.
Stop Thinking Inside the Box, Think as if There is No Box
So genius. I learned this from one of my mentors, AJ Adams. I’ve always prided myself on thinking outside the box for our clients throughout the years – in fact that was one of the biggest reasons clients love working with us. We always find ways to make conversion work and alleviate development roadblocks by thinking outside the box.
I heard so many variations of this thinking at the event as well, you have to think MASSIVE. Because what you think becomes what you attract and what you do. That means you also need to take action – thinking about it isn’t enough.
I’ve always loved the law of attraction, but always felt it was missing a huge piece – which is the element of taking action (afterall – attraction does have the word “action” in it) – but most people you talk to simply think that you “think it” and it happens. Not true.
I learned that you should be thinking 10 years into the future.Visualize it all – the sights, the sounds, the smells. If you are thinking big, then your business should be 10 or 20x the size that it is now, if you have 10 employees, you should see yourself walking into an office with 100 employees. If you own 1 practice, you should see yourself owning 10 around the country. Seriously, act as if there’s no box!!
Hold that vision and get lost in it. Make it a movie that you rewatch daily. I incorporate this into my daily morning routine – I spend 20 minutes each morning with my eyes closed visualizing what 10 years from now looks like. If that doesn’t get you pumped for the day – nothing will!!
With that vision in your mind all day at work, think about all the things you’re doing and if it gets you closer to that goal. I’m betting you 80% of what you do, doesn’t get you close to it.
It’s All About Your Process
This was a common underlying theme in the entire event spoken from business owners with businesses valued at $200M and up. You have to implement and stick to a process that is your own.
Here’s my 5am routine/process that I’ve implemented 2 years ago:
- 5am: wake up and pull my ass out of bed
- 5-540am: Read a business or personal growth book (right now I’m reading Elon Musk’s biography)
- 5:40-6am: Visualization (I live 10 years from now)
- 6-630am: Sales and business training (online courses)
- 6:30-7am: Shower and get ready for the day
- 7am+: Start work
Every morning, every day – that is my process… including on weekends. Do I hit it 100% of the time? Of course not, but I do my best to never miss more than 2 days in a row.
It has increased my productivity immensely and it’s made me realize that the more I do, the more I realize I can do. Which is one of the most motivating business insights I’ve had.
So, what’s the next conference you are going to attend? Shoot me a DM and let me know which conference and who knows – I may see you there!
P.S. Be the poorest person in the room with the smallest business, if you are – you know you’re in the right room. There were quite a few businesses smaller than us and I loved sharing my insights and learnings from the mistakes we’ve made in business to help them reach our level. Everyone I talked to doing bigger things than us was gracious and inviting.
Put yourself in the right room.
If you’re looking to take the next step in scaling your business, schedule a consultation with us today. We’ll help take your business to the next level and optimize it within the digital realm.