Ken Wentworth explains why entrepreneurs stall: they lack a clear plan, the right tools, or solid support. One client realized his limiting beliefs cost him $1 million yearly and invested six figures in coaching expecting tenfold returns. Wentworth fired a negative client and refunded five figures to protect his peace of mind.
I know you're famous for that, you know, helping people earn more in 12 weeks than they did in the last 12 months and saving time. As entrepreneurs and business owners, which is the vast majority of our audience, how the heck do you do that?
The point is building your business is like building a house, right? That's the analogy I like to think about, a house, right? A house has a lot of moving parts to it. It's not necessarily easy to build a house, you know? And what a lot of the gurus say You know, is they're saying, "Well, listen, if you want to build a house, you got to just psych yourself up. Come on, take massive action." That's my favorite. Get take massive action. And so what are most what are most entrepreneurs doing? That what they're doing is they're running around slapping boards together and hoping a house shows up. Oh, come on, let's go! Uh, man, I'm tired. It's still kind of cold in here, isn't it? Yeah, it's kind of drafty.
Shoot!
What what did I do wrong? What you did wrong was you don't have a plan. That's the first thing. So to have a successful business, you really need 3 things. You need, number one, you need the right plan, right? If you're going to build a house, I'll give you a perfect example. All right? My father, when, you know, I mentioned we grew up poor in a rich neighborhood. Well, what was funny, ironic is my father actually decided when I was just 5 years old that he was going to build a house, literally build a house from scratch. And he literally said, well, how hard can it be? A little naive, huh? Right? But he did. He said, I'm working on building a house.
Confidence though. He's confident, Noah.
He's a confident guy. I'm not kidding. I mean, talk about thinking positive, right? Where do you think I got it? Anyway, so he said, let's build a house. And you know what? He did it. He actually did it. He had a good plan. He had a blueprint, right? And so he followed the blueprint. He built a house. So that's what building a business is like, building a house, right? A plan. Then you need the right tools, right? You need the right tools because you can't just build a house, you know, with your bare hands. That would hurt, right? So you need a hammer, saw, nails, you know, screwdrivers or whatever. So he had the tools, he built. But see, he was missing the most important, the crucial third element, which I see so many entrepreneurs struggling with. And that is you must have the right support. You have to have the right support. Somebody in your corner who, number one, believes in you oftentimes when you don't believe in yourself. Here's another perfect example of that. I literally just brought on a new coaching client. Now, to get one-on-one mentoring with me right now is a 6-figure investment, and people pay that. And he actually found one of my other books, which is called Power Habits. That's another book that I've written. And he told me that he was in Barnes Noble, and he passed my book 3 times on the bookshelf. He just kept walking by it, and it kept calling out to him. And he finally bought my book. He read like 50 pages of it. He didn't even finish. He reached out to me and he said, Noah, you are the coach I've been looking for. He hired me on the spot, paid me 6 figures. And we just literally just started working together less than a month ago. But he told me, the reason I'm bringing up this story is that he told me that his head trash, as a result of reading in my books and, or my book and understanding this now for the first time, seeing it in a new perspective, he said, Noah, my head trash is costing me at least $1 million every single year. So he's literally, he invested 1/10 of that. And that's what I said. I said, well, if you just give me $1, I'll give you $10 back. Do you think that's a good investment? Of course it is. Right? And so that's the point for everyone listening. Do you have the right plan? No, it's not about taking massive— yes, of course, you have to take action, obviously. But if you don't have a plan, you're busy slapping boards together. Number 2, you need the right tools. The funny thing is now we have so many tools. A lot of times when entrepreneurs hire me, when they come to me, have to have them stop doing stuff. They're trying to do 10 million things. And it's like, oh my gosh, it's overwhelming. And then number 3, you've got to have the right support. And you've got to have the right support system. And if you don't have that, it's kind of like in the Rocky movies. Remember, you know, the Rocky, the original Rocky movies? Like my favorite is Rocky III. Remember when, you know, first he had his original trainer, Mickey, who died, and then he had Apollo Creed? Well, what Apollo Creed did is he said, by the way, when When Mr. T is punching you in the face, move your face out of the way.
When I find people who are like that, who are the, I mean, Debbie Downers, and not even necessarily downer, but just everything is impossible. You know, you talk to them and it's like, oh my God, oh well, we could never do that.
It's funny you mentioned that because I actually just had to fire a client because of that. I had already coached him for 9 weeks. And every single week it was, oh, this will never work. Oh yeah, you made all this money for everyone else, but it'll never work for me. And it's like, okay, finally I said, you know what? You're right. It won't work for you. You're fired. I gave him all his money back. I mean, I'd already coached him. You know, I mean, I'd already been coaching him. He paid me, you know, 5 figures. I gave him all his money back because I'm like, you know what? I'm tired of this. I don't need this. And that's, you know, again, what's the lesson? The lesson is that if people aren't appreciating what you do, then sometimes, let me put it this way, sometimes money is too expensive. Right? I mean, did I like giving that 5 figures back? No, of course not. But it's like, you know what? I'd rather have my peace of mind, you know, than somebody's money who's just completely, completely— and obviously, the whole irony of that is I could have helped him.
Right.
Obviously. I mean, duh. You know? And it's like, but every single thing. Oh, but this won't work and this won't work. I'm like, but it's worked for so many other people. Why wouldn't it work for you? Oh, but it won't. I'm like, okay, you know what? You're right. It won't work. Bye. Here's your money. Go away. You know? And honestly, it was like a huge 80-ton weight off of me because I'm like, oh, I was so tired. Because that's like 1 out of 1,000 people that I deal with nowadays. I mean, frankly, it hasn't happened for a long time. But that's the point is that if you're still saying, oh, it won't work for me, then hello, that is the head trash that's keeping you stuck. That's the very point. So for everyone, what is your head trash? Take it out. Get the books. Send me a book, Noah. It's free. You know, don't let, don't let your head trash stop you from getting this book. And then we can start you on the path and get your foot off the brake.
