The PIVOT Incubator | Q&A With Adam

Hi, it's Adam, and I want to spend a little time with you today, answering some questions that I got. And I want to start by saying that nobody gets left behind. Nobody gets left behind in my water. And that's the reason why I came back, because I know there's a lot of things that are on your mind. We got some questions. I'm just going to read from the iPad some of these questions and address them and hopefully be able to help you to make a great decision. So here's question number one. It says, do I have to stop or quit what I'm currently doing and just up and change everything? Well, I think of this as sort of the burn the ships fallacy. And it's probably one of the most difficult things for people to deal with. And I think it's probably because the media has sort of drummed it into our heads that in order to be successful, to do something really big, I don't know what big means, but to do something important in our lives, we actually have to put it all on the line. We have to push all the chips into the center of the table. We have to, in essence, burn the ships. And I think this is flat out untrue. So, first of all, I'm going to call BS on that whole thing. It's not true. It's not what you have to do. It is a commitment device, and there are people that do it, but they're the outliers. They're the people that are literally outside the bell curve. They push it all into, you know, into the center of the table. They risk everything, and more often than not, they crash and burn. And you don't hear those stories. You hear the stories of the people who occasionally are able to succeed in doing that. But what really happens when that's what you believe, when that's your mindset that you have to risk everything in order to change your life in order to create the business that you've been thinking about since you were 15 years old? I mean, I was an entrepreneur starting at 15, and I always wanted to have my freedom. I always wanted to be able to do what I wanted with my time and, of course, have as much money as I. As I wanted or needed. And so that's a great dream. That's a reachable dream. You do not have to quit your job necessarily to do that. You don't have to move to Fiji to do it. You don't have to risk everything that's in your bank account to do that. What you need to do is take a small step, a baby step, so that the burning the bridge fallacy, the myth that you have to actually risk everything, the reason why it's such an insidious problem is that it means that everything's on the line, and therefore it brings up fear. And fear is the only thing that stops us. It's the only thing that stops me. It's the only thing that stops you. So the answer to that question, and I wish I had this person's name on here, but the answer to the question, do I have to burn the ships? Do I have to risk everything? Is, no, you do not need to do that. I didn't do that. That's not what I teach. That's not what the pivot process is. That's not what our team teaches you to do or helps you to do. It is to create a plan B, to create, in essence, a second plan to pursue that thing that you have wanted to do for so very long. That's the simple answer to a very complicated question. So getting started is the answer. Staying stuck, staying where you are is the problem. And the thing that keeps us stuck again is fear. It's fear that it's got to all be on the line in order to succeed. That's bs. And you don't need to go down that road in order to have what you truly, truly want and what I believe you deserve. So question number two. I'm afraid that everything I've done so far will be wasted. Well, that's a big one. And I think it hits people that have been around a little longer, maybe have a few more gray hairs, or in my case, you know, have a few less hairs. Everything you've done so far is perfect. I know that's going to sound strange, and maybe it even sounds a little like, I don't know, it's sort of motivational. I'm not interested in motivating anybody. I like to inspire myself and hopefully inspire other people. But the truth of the matter is that everything that's happened in your life so far has happened for a reason. Everything that's happened in your life so far is valid. Therefore it was required. Therefore it's useful. And the whole alchemy of life, the beauty of life, is to be able to utilize everything, all of it, even the stuff that you might think of as shit, is fertilizer for the next thing that you're supposed to be doing. There's no question that the art of living, art of living successfully is to be able to connect the dots, to be Able to see what other people cannot see, see the relevance in all the seemingly random events that have happened in your every one of them is valid. So whether you've been working in an ad agency, or as an accountant, or as a lawyer, like in my case, a lawyer for 20 years, to do something new means you're going to draw on everything you've learned so far. All of those skills will be useful to you. You just don't know at the moment how they'll be useful. And therefore it brings up fear. So it's natural to ask this question. I completely get it. But the fact of the matter is that whatever your new venture is, whether you're gonna create a pop up art gallery or you're gonna do, you know, get a truck and sell meatballs out of a truck, which we've often thought we'd have my wife Randy be doing that because she's such an incredible cook. Whatever it is that you're gonna do that you want to do, what you've done so far will help you, will serve you, will inform you and give you wisdom. To be successful at that, you've just gotta feel it. You've gotta have that confidence. And sometimes you know what? We lack confidence. We have these conversations all the time. This is not a one. Not like I can give you a pill or prescribe something where you're going to feel confident for the rest of your life. You know, every day you're going to wake up and you're going to have the same sort of battle. You're going to have to be vigilant with yourself. And that's where training and support comes in. That's where our team comes in. Because pivoting, reinventing is our gig. This is what we help people. This is what we've done ourselves. This is what we hopefully are able to model in the world. And we can help you do the same. So the bottom line is you're in the perfect place right now, right where you are, what you've learned, what you've done to move forward. You just need a little bit of confidence and maybe some tools and skills to help you to get, get that bridge built and get into that new space. We can help you do that. Question number three. I feel like I have to wait for the right time to start something like this. Well, I'm laughing only because that's everybody's thing, right? Everybody's waiting all the time for the stars to align, right? I'm waiting for the stars to align, waiting for the ducks to line up. The funny thing about it, if you ever see ducks, they do line up. They do line up, right? Except they don't stay 10 seconds after they're lined up. What are they? They're like scattered again, right? So waiting for the ducks to line up, waiting for the stars to align. It's waiting forever. It's waiting for Godot, you know, that old play. It's waiting for things that will probably never happen. And I don't want to sort of get in your face too much about this, but waiting is a habit. Putting things off is a habit. Procrastination is a habit. There's an old Chinese proverb that says that says the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. And the second best time is now, right? So we all wish, you know, or many people will talk about, I wish I bought real estate in the 80s. Well, the people that were living in the 80s said they wish they bought real estate in the 60s. And those people said, I wish I bought real estate in the 40s. I mean, that's the joke of it. Now is the time. There's never going to be the, quote, perfect time, or at least what you think is the perfect time. I'm telling you, and I have the ability to do this, that you can't. We can't often see ourselves. We don't have that objectivity. I'm telling you, this is the perfect time. This is the perfect time for you to get started and don't wait for anything else to get you going. Doesn't matter what it is that you do. You just need to do something now instead of thinking about it for the next 10 years, because that only leads to regret. I can't even say the word. The word just doesn't even taste, you know, it's. I won't even say it again. You heard it once, start now. That's my advice. And I love that question. So thank you. Question number four. This one you guys are all going to know, right? I don't have the money to invest, right? Man, this is the objection of objections, right? It's the excuse of excuses. I don't have money. Whoever has the money for it. I mean, I know you think people do, but when you're a billionaire or a millionaire, you don't think they think about money. You don't think Oprah thinks about money. I mean, I once saw an interview, I think it was Oprah and Shania Twain, and they were talking about going to pay less shoes and how they could save nine bucks on a pair of Shoes. So, look, money is a blueprint thing. It's a programming thing. You've been programmed to think about money the way you do. And for the most part, if money is an objection to something you truly want to do, it's because you're coming from a place of scarcity. And that programming, that scarcity mindset has been programmed into you. It's not like you were born with it. I mean, this comes from your parents and your grandparents and from the other people that have been influential in your life, and even from the people who are gone and you never met. It's in your DNA. And you've got to challenge that. And the only way to challenge that is to simply ask yourself, do I want to do this thing? Not do you need to? Look, I don't believe in need. Need. Anytime I hear the word need, in fact, with our teams and even with myself, I'm constantly tracking that word because need is a scarcity word. So this is not about need. If you think you need to do this program, I'll tell you, don't do the program right now. This is not about need. This is about want. Do you want to learn something new? Do you want to take a baby step or a bold step in the direction of your dreams, of a thing that you want to do, a thing that. That would actually open your heart and help you to maybe open other people's hearts, that you get to be of service in the world? That's the greatest thing about business. It's supreme leverage. Meaning you can take something that you love, something that you're. That you. That you've learned. Anything that you've learned, you have the right to teach. I want to say that again. Anything that you've learned in life entitles you to teach to someone else, which means that you get to be of value. Now, do you want to be of value to 10 people or a hundred people? Or a thousand people? Or a million people? What I love about business and why I'm a serial business owner and entrepreneur since many years ago, is that it gives you the leverage to touch a lot of lives. And if you just do it for yourself, it's just a hobby. You love to cook, and you cook for your family. And every Sunday, you're the one making dinner, and people just can't get enough of your food. And that fills you up, that fills your heart, and that's all you want. Fantastic. But if you'd like to have other people taste that cooking, because you know that you put the juju in that Cooking, you put the healing energy in that cooking, you put the love in that cooking. And it makes people different, it helps them to be more, more loving people. And you want that to spread. You want that to other people, to experience that ain't got to be in business to do that. You got to get out there, you got to be bigger, in other words. And so right now, money, if money is the thing that's in your way, it's the perfect moment to challenge that, to challenge that scarcity mindset by doing something and saying, money is not going to stop me. Money is just a thing like anything else. It's currency, it's an exchange. Energetically. There's always enough money for what you truly want. There's always enough money for what you truly want. So if you answer the question, if you answer the question is, I want this, you find the money, period, end of subject. And if it's not, if it's not something you truly want or you think you need it, then the answer is no. I hope that answered that question. Question number five, I'm already so busy. What if I don't have the time? So I think we covered money. Now we're going to cover the other huge objection, right? The big, big excuse in people's lives. I don't have the time. And this was mine. Actually, my objection wasn't so much money. When I was given an opportunity to kind of advance myself and go back to school, learn some things. I hadn't learned my issue. My challenge was time. How will I ever find the time? I was in a full time business already, four kids, house cars, I think we had gerbils and fish, two dogs, all that kind of thing. How will I ever find the time? And the truth of the matter is, you'll never find the time. If you don't think you'll find the time, you'll never find the time. We find that. Look, you want to have great relationships with your kids, you're going to find the time. You want to have great relationship with your life partner, you're going to find the time. Anything that you truly value, you will find the time for or you won't. And it's just an energetic exchange. And I'll say this to you because I think it's probably the biggest, single biggest challenge for people. And I've had the blessing to work with a lot of people from a lot of different cultures around the world for many years now. So I say this with some element of experience that we do not care for ourselves nearly enough we fall down on the job of self care and self love. And so we put off the things that are actually important to us until sometime when we feel better, when we feel more worthy, when we feel more deserving. You've got to give yourself time. If there's a dream that's in your heart, if it's still there somehow after all these years, you know, something you've been thinking about since you were 10 years old or when you were 20 or 30, or maybe it's a new dream that just sort of, you know, popped into your head. You've had business ideas, you know, that you've not executed, you've not done anything with. You've had business ideas where you've actually seen those ideas done, executed by other people or other companies and gone, oh man, I wish we could have done that. My wife, Randy, she's had so many ideas that we've spoken about years and years ago. And then we watched with frustration as a couple of months later, a couple of years later, these great business ideas were taken up and really done well by someone else, which was such a blessing. Now, we didn't think it was a blessing at the time, of course. We were like, oh, I can't believe we missed that chance. But the truth is that when there's a great idea, I truly believe that the universe, spirit, God will not let that idea go to waste. So if you can't bring it forward, thank goodness someone else will. Right, so you've got some great ideas. Maybe you've got something that's been a dream of yours from, you know, way back when. Now is the best time. Now is the only time. This is the only thing we've got. All of our power, all of our power. I'll say this again, all of our power of our power resides in the present moment. And you deserve this. You deserve to give yourself everything that you want in this moment. I'm not talking about being self indulgent. I'm talking about if you've got a business idea or something you're passionate about, maybe you want to, you want to actually take up that painting. You want to teach other people yoga. Whatever it is that you, that you really want to do, now is the time to do it. And you will find the time. That's the bottom line. Anything that you truly care about, you will find the time for. And it's kind of an interesting thing too. And this is the last thing I'll say about this, is that when we make commitments and this is the same thing for Money, time and money. When we make commitments, the universe. I believe the universe meets us, meets us in that place of bravery where we're courageous enough to make a bold commitment, or what feels like a bold commitment. When we commit, the universe moves. The universe moves. It shifts. And so magically, miraculously, however you want to say it, the money appears, the time is there, because the universe knows you're serious. And when you just sort of dabbling, you know, you're a dabbler like so many people are. The universe knows you're not serious, and so there's no place to meet you. I don't believe that the universe meets us in mediocrity. It'll never meet us in that place or that space. So this is about you challenging yourself right now to seek to take what you're seeking and do something with it right this moment. And the time will be there for you. Question number six. I don't have a business idea to incubate. That's actually. I love this question. Because the truth is everybody has business ideas. You just don't often know whether or not the idea that you've got is a good one. That's more, again, a worthiness issue or a challenge to the way that you frame things in your mind. You've got lots of ideas. You've got incredible ideas. I bet you, and I mean, I won't bet, let's say this is a little challenge that in 60 seconds, in 60 seconds, you could come up with 10 great business ideas. And oftentimes we just. We just think things too much. We. We overthink things. You've got great business ideas. What you're really lacking, potentially the person who asked this question, and I know you're not alone, is a process to help you to. To decide which are the best ones. Oftentimes we get people that either say they don't have an idea or actually have too many ideas and they don't know which one to focus on. And so it's a process, it's a foundational piece to just be able to get clarity. The process, the pivot process, is about creating clarity, then learning from that clarity, what to do, what's the next movement, the way that you recalibrate some things so that you can move forward, take baby steps in that direction so you get into momentum, and then you're in a community that holds you accountable and you're taking consistent actions according to a plan. That's the pivot process. But you notice we didn't start with the plan. We didn't start with the shiny penny or the bright shiny object. We didn't start with the strategy, we start with the process. And so it's really wonderful that the person who asked this question, there's great humility and asking. I don't have, you know, saying, I don't have an idea to incubate. Well, I challenge you on that. You wouldn't have been watching this video, you wouldn't have taken the time to even ask this question or submit this question if you didn't know deep down inside intuitively that there's some value for you to add in the world. And it would be our honor and our pleasure to help you to find that idea to incubate. So again, this is the perfect place for you to be if you're ready to incubate a great idea, find out what that idea is, choose the idea among the many ideas you might already have. Then let's start your pivot process right now. I started by saying that nobody gets left behind, nobody goes down in our water. And I want to complete that by sharing with you the context from where that statement comes from, the context for what we do in the pivot community and what our pivot team is committed to. So it's years ago and so many years ago that actually had a big head of hair, alright? And I was working as a lifeguard at a beach and we get like 100,000 patrons on a Saturday or Sunday. And sometimes, you know, the water was pretty, pretty mellow and it was pretty cool. But a lot of the times we had these rip currents and sort of 2, 3 or 4 o' clock in the afternoon, people been baking in the sun, people that were not really swimmers but, you know, came to just sort of suntan themselves. And we would watch them and know pretty instantaneously who were the people that could swim and couldn't swim. And at the beginning of the season, when I first started working there, I was like 18 years old and I worked at that beach for about seven years. At the beginning of the season, the captain of our field had a talk with us and he said, listen, we don't lose people. We don't lose people at this field. People drown and have drowned at the field. Field to the east of us and the field to the west of us, but nobody drowns at our field. He said, nobody goes down in our water. And we said, okay, nobody goes down in our water. We get that. And then he said something else that has stuck with me ever since. And I've used this, It Changed my life when he said it, it changed my life after that. For seven summers that I worked at that field, we never lost anybody. Hundred thousand patrons. We would make rescues. Sometimes every 10 minutes we were in the water because those rip currents would come and people would be in 2ft of water or 3ft of water, and the next thing you know, they were over their head and we're in the water and they're going down. And the captain said to us, he said, nobody goes down in our water. You make the save or you die trying. You make the save, save, or you die trying. And so, to me, that's the context for everything that's important to me in my life, whether it's with our kids, whether it's in business, certainly whether it's in helping other people pivot in their lives, reinvent their lives. Nobody goes down in our water, meaning we don't leave anybody behind. So wherever you are right now, wherever we're meeting you, it could be that you don't love your job or maybe even hate your freaking job, or it could be that there's some other area of your life, whether it's money or it's health or relationships or something that you're looking to make a positive change in. I'm letting you know this. You will not go down in our water. We will not leave you behind. That's the intensity at which we meet you at. And with love and a lot of support, and we will hold your feet to the fire. So let me say that as well, that there'll be some tough love if it's needed. But we got you. And that's what I want you to know. We've got you.