4 lessons I learned the hard way

Remember the glory days of Buzzfeed, when they got a multi-billion $ valuation from making those quizzes like “Which forgettable minor character from Spy Kids 3 is your spirit animal?” that everybody shared on Facebook?

Well in the spirit of Buzzfeed, I’ve got a listicle for you today: some things I’ve learned in my 4+ decades on this planet that are the closest thing I that I know to universal truths.

Maybe they’ll be helpful, or maybe you’ll just roll your eyes and call me cringe— either way, here they are:

1/ Focus, focus, focus

The creative types hate hearing this, but it’s kind of a non-negotiable— spreading yourself too thin is guaranteed to slow your progress to a crawl.

Commit to one offer, for one segment. Don’t even think about adding a podcast, newsletter, Twitter strategy, etc until you have at least one marketing channel with serious momentum.

2/ Done is better than perfect

Unless we’re talking about pacemakers or jet engines, it’s almost always better to ship something imperfect than spend more time fiddling with details that nobody other than you will ever notice.

To be clear, I’m not telling you to cut corners— I’m telling you to care a LOT about the details that actually matter. But the rest of them? Let them go, and put that time into something that will move your business forward.

Time is your most precious resource, so don’t waste it!

3/ Believe that it’s possible

Negative self-talk is another guaranteed momentum-killer, because as the old saying goes, “Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right.”

Try this: ask yourself what’s stopping you from achieving what you want. 90% of the time the answer is nothing other than a bunch of work and fear of rejection.

For example, if you want to get 10 more clients this year, what’s actually stopping you? What if you just sent 10 DMs a day, every day? It’s literally only a matter of time until someone says yes… then you just repeat until you have as many clients as you want.

Which brings me to the last and most important one:

4/ Put in the work

There is no substitute for this. Without exception, everyone I know who’s done something cool with their life has spent some serious time just straight up grinding.

I know that’s an unpopular opinion. I’m supposed to tell you that you can make $14,000 a day in passive income while only working 47 minutes a week. I’m supposed to tell you that balance and self-care are important and all that— and they are. But if you want to something exceptional, it’s also going to require an exceptional amount of work.

But this won’t last forever— you’re building a network, systems and a business that will give you a level of freedom that most people will never have. So when you’re grinding, remember that all the work you're putting in WILL pay off.

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And that does it for my listicle. Come back next week, and maybe I’ll have a real Buzzfeed-style quiz for you— I’m thinking something like “Which crappy, straight-to-DVD sequel to American Pie defined your teen years??”

PS - If you like my emails, reply to this and say hi! I don’t have any room for new clients right now so I have nothing to sell you, but I always like talking with people.