There are no shortcuts to success - The timeline of reality

G', day, guys.

It's Dan here with another episode of the Video Business Accelerator podcast.

Wow.

Episode 17. Now, as you know, we went weekly from last week, so my plan is to give you even more content and got some really cool guests coming up in a couple of weeks time. But today I want to focus on, you know, this, this idea of success.

And, and that there are no shortcuts to success.

I think one of the common fallacies is that there's some sort of magic.

Button you can press, or if you.

Just learn one thing or the other, it'll all make everything okay. And the fact is, running a business is a series of fairly monotonous tasks done consistently. So you can't shortcut the work that's required to become successful. First of all, you have to decide.

What success means to you.

But you know, business is a game of repeating small but significant tasks consistently, and it's not always sexy at the coal face. However, if you can build consistency and structure and discipline into your life, which I agree is tricky for us creatives, but if you can, and there is a way to do that, because that's exactly what we do in the Video Business Accelerator is help you to build that consistency into your life. And clients we work with who have spent some time in the program always say it's the consistency and the support and the accountability that makes a difference. So if you're someone who struggles with accountability, struggles with getting your goals achieved beyond just a long to do, list them, you might be interested in checking out the Video Business Accelerator. We have this amazing community. We have weekly coaching calls and weekly accountability. So if you're in a business where you want to kind of up your game, then it could be the thing that's right for you. So check it out@videobusinessaccelerator.com and here's this week's podcast.

You're listening to the Business for Creators podcast, where each week we uncover the secrets to balancing creativity and business all in the one place. With your host, me, Dan Lenny.

G', day, folks, and welcome to another episode of the Business for Creatives podcast. I'm Dan, your host, and today I wanted to talk about. Really, it's a mindset issue. But look, there just are no shortcuts to success. I was watching a Gary Vee video this morning on Instagra, and it reminded me of just how important hard work, focus, discipline and grit are when running a business. Now, regardless of how you personally feel about Gary Vee.

You know, he raised some really good points. I'M also quite pleasantly surprised how the universe seems to deliver you a message that you need to hear just when you most need to hear it. The fact is, the future is in your hands. It's in our hands. It's in all of our hands. We can make excuses or we can make it happen. Now I remember back about November 2017, which is going back a little bit. I had a pretty tough three months in business and the reason I look which will explain a bit later on. But I think it's important as a leader that I also reveal my vulnerabilities so that you can fully understand that life isn't just somehow easier for me.

Life is hard for everyone.

I think it was Buddha that said.

Life is pain, suffering is optional. And really when you're tested as a leader and as a business owner is when things go wrong or when the chips are down and things are guaranteed to go wrong in business all the time, you're going to make some monumental screw ups. They're going to cost you a lot of money and it's going to be very expensive learning, but perhaps it's cheap learning in the long run. It's amazing how quickly a couple of things can alter your course. And it's a constant reminder of how vulnerable we are in business. And we should always have a healthy element of productive paranoia. Productive paranoia is, you know, assuming the worst will go wrong.

One of my mentors, Ben Simkin, says he goes into the office going, I know something's going to go wrong today. What's going to go wrong? And how can I prepare for it when it goes wrong? So, but before I go into the details of the story, I want to talk about the importance of the clarity of intention. If you're not super clear on why you're doing what you're doing, then it's a really good place to start. Now it can be a very confronting thing to sit and actually think about why you're doing what you're doing. There might be obvious reasons, there might be practical reasons, like you've got a family, you've got to pay the mortgage. Those are what I call the essentials. But especially for the men listening to this, we don't often sit and appreciate or think about why we're doing something beyond the kind of cursory acknowledgement, why are you doing what you're doing?

Another way to look at this is to consider the difference between the short term objectives versus the longer term objectives. I know from my own experience, I'm always thinking about, well, I've got to pay a mortgage or rent, I've got to pay for that equipment or. It's a constant fear, I guess a hangover for being a freelancer which never really leaves you, which is the idea of feast and famine. Keep hunting, keep foraging. Excuse me. Keep getting the work coming in to actually create some time and space to think about why you're doing it. And it can be very, very difficult. Now this is something that happened to me back in November 2017.

I'd had a pretty rough patch in my business. The journey to live in Australia had been extremely challenging and revealing. Just the sheer paperwork to do. You know, when you move to another country, you literally strip yourself bare and it's sink or swim. You know, you can have an established business in one country, but you're starting again in a new country. So once you've gotten over that excitement of planning the move, filling the container and moving across the country and 10,000 miles in our case, and the first 18 months, it's just awe inspiring. Wow. It's just like everything is new, everything is exciting. But then reality sets in. And what's really interesting about that whole journey is that no one actually cares, no one cares really if we take a swim. And that's quite a confronting place to put yourself because you're essentially putting yourself on a mountaintop. And here's the thing that's really revealing. Secretly everyone wants you to fail. And it's like that when you start a business. People are like, oh, that's so cool you're running a business. But secretly they kind of want you to fail because.

And this is not about dwelling on self pity, it's about reality and understanding of what you can do about it. People rarely actually want you to succeed. Certainly in Australia or the uk. The USA is a little bit different. Entrepreneurship is really celebrated. But why do people actually want you to fail? Because if you succeed and when you succeed and you will, other people who are not willing to put in the work and the sacrifice and put themselves in that position of discomfort, well, when you succeed, their shortcomings or failings in their lives will be highlighted. You know, friends and family have got nine to five jobs who don't have the uncertainty that you have running a business, who don't have the pressure of running your business or having to find the work each day or each week. When you do succeed and you do create a world where you can actually make some choices and you can take a month off here and there, you can take a day off if you choose to when you reach a point where that becomes routine and that will become routine in time, especially if you follow the instructions that you know are being shared in this podcast series. And if, if you join my creative business accelerator, almost certainly you will succeed and you will have a level of freedom that they only dream about. Now, if you're willing to do now what most of the population aren't willing to do, it means in 10 or 15 years time you'll be doing stuff that they can't even dream about and that will create resentment. It's human nature and that everybody secretly wants you to fail. And I know that when we moved to Australia, while many people were celebrating our lives, who enjoyed the pictures we sent and were genuinely excited for, there is a few people who just think, well, it's only a matter of time before they're back. It won't work out. People are actually willing you to fail and that's something you just need to get used to. It's just the way it is. Like, you know, it's just human nature and none of that actually really bothers me. But as long as you're fully aware that it is human nature. So whatever you're doing in your business, be prepared for people close to you family particularly to be willing you to fail, or questioning why you're doing something or saying, oh, that will never work. Humans don't really want to see their peers succeed. Now the difference is when you're in a group of like minded entrepreneurs and business owners, everyone wants you to succeed. But humans don't generally want their peer group to succeed in general. But my advice is always do it anyway because you literally have nothing to lose. I was talking to one of my clients recently about their journey and his worst nightmare was the fear of it not working out and him having to go and get a job and commute back to London every day from Hertfordshire. Now, I'm pleased to say he's actually doing really well and he's been working closely with us in the creative business accelerator Mastermind for some time. And look, it takes between six and eight months for the light bulb to really go off. When we're working really closely with people, it can happen quicker, there's always results to get quicker. But when we work people really closely.

It takes a while for the penny to drop all the foundations to be built because none of it happens that quickly because you have to change the way you think and then learn new skills and implement those new skills.

But you know what you can achieve in six to eight months with Some guidance is probably what we take you six to eight years to do without guid. So it's all about, are you willing to wait six or eight years or do you want to do it quicker? Now this particular client is very clear on their why now, what his purpose is and having clarity of your purpose is what it's all about. So I want to just talk now about the timeline of reality as I record this. It's 10 years almost since I set my business up. I just want to recap here about some of my journey and why it's been challenging. So in 2009, I set up a business in the middle of a recession. Now that was a business that was set up with someone else at the peak of when DSLRs were just coming to the market and everyone was super excited about the prospect of being able to film the film look on a dslr. It was my idea to create the training product on the 5D Mark II. In 2010, I fired my business partner because our values simply did not align. Now, I won't go into details of that story, but I was always really about helping other people succeed. My goal for F Stop Academy was always to help other filmmakers become more successful. It wasn't about me, it never has been. But obviously firing my business partner left me with a gaping hole because I was the guy behind the scenes. I was the producer, I was the guy pulling the strings, doing the deals. I was the guy creating the products, not the guy out front. But my values didn't align with the guy out front. Some things came to light that I wasn't aware of at the time. And so I decided it was better to split the business partnership there and then. Was it hard? Yes. I had to remove that relationship from my life. It wasn't, wasn't constructive. And I built this entire business from nothing. I gave up a massively well paying job, remortgaged the house and put everything I had into creating this business. Now, as the years passed and I created multiple products on my own, I built my own reputation in 2014. So five years after starting the business, I wrote a book. Was it hard? Yeah, it was really hard. I had to force myself to do it. It was the hardest thing I've ever done. But you know what? You set a plan in motion. You set an intention, structure your process, then implement. It's really just about discipline. In 2015, I started a monthly newsletter and a subscription program called the Six Figure Filmmaker. We've done over 30 issues of that now. And over three years it's been running. I've probably written another hundred thousand words. That's enough for another two books. But more importantly, I've helped hundreds of filmmakers become more successful as a result of reading the newsletter and them implementing the tools, the strategies and the suggestions that we make. And I'm not stopping here. In fact, I'm just getting started. They say it takes seven to ten days, sorry, seven to ten years to establish a business. We're now in year nine of F Stop Academy and we've rebranded as Filmmakers Business Academy. But interestingly, over the years we've had success and challenges. And back in November 2017, we had really probably the toughest three months of our career. And it was the toughest mentally I've ever had to endure.

It was just a combination of things.

It was like the perfect storm. Some family issues, emotional challenges around moving to the other side of the world. For both my wife and I. I made some bad financial decisions and scaled too quickly. And this is really critical. I scaled too quickly, I took on some extra rent. I lost a big client and I scaled too quickly. I lost a big client because they lost a big client. On top of that, I was presented with a $27,000 bill for rent that I wasn't expecting that hadn't been paid. Now you might seem think this is strange, that how could I miss a $27,000 bill? But the fact is it was over seven or eight months.

And I'd been paying my rent because I had two different offices and wework at that point and one had been paying by credit card and one by bank transfer and one of the payments had been going through but the bank transfer rent kept popping back into my account, but I didn't notice until my bookkeeper actually wasn't my book. My bookkeeper failed to spot it, which is one massive issue. You know, you employ someone to look after your books and they didn't spot it. So, you know, even when you're outsourcing, the quality people you're working with can be terrible, I'm pleased to say. Now I work with an incredible bookkeeper, but it's just, it's just, it's the perfect storm. So the rent kept popping back into the account, but we were doing a lot of different transactions at that point and it was just money in, money out.

During this time I worked with some consultants who I trusted and listened to advice and got some bad advice. So, you know, I made some pretty expensive decisions in a bid to build the video creators business that I started. Then I Realized I was going down the wrong track. So I reset, I held my nerve, and I refocused. Has it been mentally exhausting? Well, it was, yeah. But I never stopped believing that I could fix it. I simply worked out a strategy for how to pay down the rent while investigating what had went wrong. And if you speak to any successful entrepreneur, they'll tell you that you only learn when you make mistakes. What I discovered right at the very last minute was there was simply one digit incorrect in the bank account details. Completely my fault. But when you get presented with a $27,000 bill, you're not expecting it really tests your nerve. Any tough lessons in life is something to be celebrated. You've just learned a load of valuable lessons, and business education is not free. So I look at that as a very cheap business lesson. Because I saved 20,000. I had to pay the money back, of course. But I then decided to knock that part of the business on the head, downsize, reduce my costs and focus doubling down on the business coaching, creating the podcast.

So, you know, any tough lesson in.

Life is something that should be celebrated. Get up, dust yourself off, and learn to move on stronger. Now, fortunately, we were in a position where we had cash flow that enabled us to pay that back. But it was very, very tough. And losing a client that was worth a considerable amount of money each month was also tough. But the important thing thing is when times are tough, you dig in. You have to dig in deeper and work harder. So what did I do? Well, I spent more money on marketing, I spent more money on editors, I invested more in education, and I created more content, and I built more of my coaching business.

When things are tough, that's when you have to find the extra resolve. Above all, I had a plan and I had a purpose. And my purpose has and always has been to help video producers succeed in business. Now, what this meant was that while the video creators business was still running, at that point I realized I wasn't aligned with my true purpose. I got carried away with looking at the numbers. And some advice I took at the time was, hey, well, if I had 30 clients, I could be making $1.5 million a year. And I focused on the money, not what I wanted to do. What I didn't consider was that I'd have to manage 30 clients. And the biggest lesson for me has to be that client management is exhausting and it can be so incredibly time consuming that it can eat every part of your being. And that was not aligned with my purpose, which was to help video Producers succeed in business. So what I was able to do was really understand that a series of mistakes created this scenario. And what was really important was I had to own it. Now, the Japanese don't have a phrase for good luck. The translation is keep going. And that's what I had to do. And that's what you have to do when things get tough in business. Now, I want to just touch here on.

A book which really impacted me, and it's called.

Extreme ownership how Navy SEALs lead and win by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. I read this about two years ago, and it is just a phenomenal book about how these guys go into battle and their decisions are life and death, and they make mistakes, and those mistakes can sometimes cost lives. I strongly urge you to go and check it out. It's called.

Extreme Ownership.

He has another book as well called Extreme Leadership. But Extreme Ownership is where I'd start.

It is a book that will quite.

Literally transform the way in which you think about your business and your leadership decisions. It's so easy to get stuck when things go wrong and to feel like you want to give up, to feel like, you know, it's just not working. And what I've realized in business is that more time is spent with things not working than things working. And I think that's the biggest lesson I had in my almost 10 years in F Stop Academy. You know, we led the wave with DVDs on how to shoot with a 5D Mark II and then a 7D, and yet we couldn't give them away now. In fact, I just recently put a 5D Mark III tutorial on YouTube for free, and it's practically invisible. So things change now. At that point, we were selling hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of DVDs, but things change every year. And what worked last week may not work next week. So this quite a short podcast, but I just wanted to emphasize the point that there are no shortcuts to success. You've got to do the work. You've got to fail. You've got to fail often. You've got to pick yourself up, you've got to brush yourself off. Go. That was a great lesson. What did I learn from that? How can I make sure that doesn't happen again? Put a system in place to ensure it doesn't happen again. Just go, okay, I learned a lot of valuable stuff there. Let's move on. Because you just can't stand still. And that, friends, is the absolute secret to success. I don't know any entrepreneurs, and I know some pretty wealthy ones who would not concur exactly with what I'm saying, which is you will fail every single day. But failure is the key to success. And I strongly urge you to just learn from your mistakes. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and absolutely keep going. And if you want some support, you know, there's no greater place to have support than from other filmmakers in the same position. And that's why I set up their Creative Business accelerator. It's a 12 month program which we don't tie you in for 12 months. It's a program that you know you can pay month to month and if it doesn't work out for you, you can leave. We don't tie you in, but most people stay because they get results and what people tell.

Community of other business owners. So when the chips are down, there's someone there who understands they're not being told by a family member. Well, I told you this wasn't going to work out. So if you're interested in learning more about that, please feel free to get in touch. It's www.meetme.sol denlenny or you can just punch in www.f8businessaccelerator.com. I'm your host, Dan Lenny. Thanks for listening and I look forward to talking to you soon.

You've been listening to the Business for Creatives podcast with your host, me Den Lenny. If you're a creative business owner who is struggling to get your business performing.

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