The Last 5 Years In Business This Is What I’ve Learned

Everyone teaches you how to start a business, but nobody teaches you the person that you must become first. Because what I have learned is that businesses do not lead the person. The person leads the business. And until these 5 switches turn on, your conversations are shaky, your decisions are slow, and your sales do not convert. And what inevitably ends up happening is that you start waiting instead of executing. But once they activate, everything gets simpler. You get better conversations, more deals, and faster progress. So let's get into the conversation and teach you the 5 shifts that you need to make even before you decide to launch that business. Welcome to the podcast, everybody. If you are new to this podcast, the first thing I would like for you to do is just go ahead and hit that subscribe button because I feel like you're gonna get a ton of value from this video. Now, if you have never heard of me before, my name is Lacedric Brantley. I am an expert at the real estate wholesaling industry, and I have here my co-host, Kenneth Jeff Williams, who is a business strategist. He has over 20+ years in the game of business, y'all, and you're gonna learn a lot on this video here. Even if you are new to business, it does not matter. So today what we're gonna be doing is we're gonna be talking about the 5 things that you need to do even before starting a business. So let's get into the conversation, man. One thing that I have learned is that most people want to get into business and everybody wants to make business look easy, right? And every video that we see, hey, start a business. Hey, leave your 9 to 5. Hey, do this. Hey, do that. And a lot of people don't talk about the person that you have to become when you start a business. So like, I always like to just to define something here starting out. Like when you talk about the epitome of a business owner, or if we were to talk about like what business means, how I look at business is simply this. It's a trade of value, right? We're basically trying to help somebody and exchange value for value, right? So if somebody wants to purchase something from us or do business with us, it's because they want to pay us money to exchange some kind of value, right? So when you think about a business owner, right, with all the things that you've been through, you know, we've had business ventures together. Like, what would you say that the current business owner needs to make sure that they do before even like starting a business? Like, what does that look like for them?

Yeah. And that's a very, very deep thought as it relates to what a person has to be and what they have to become.

Yeah.

I think one of the major points I think that most entrepreneurs miss.

Yeah.

Is they have to check their identity. They have to check their identity.

Yeah.

And what I mean by identity is it's who you are. Do you know who you are? Right. I know a couple of my mentees, we had this conversation a couple of weeks ago and they were really trying to figure out why things were not really working in their business.

Right.

And so I was looking at the construct of their business. I was like, okay, well, we put that in there. We put this part together. Okay, we did this. All right, that infrastructure is tight. So let's look at some of these KPIs. Let's see if we're measuring things correctly. And we were looking at all those and I'm like, well, we're measuring things correctly, right? So let's find out what's really going on. And so I, after thinking about it as long as I did, one of the things that I came to the realization of is your business is literally a mirror of who you are.

Yeah. That's true.

It really, really is. If you don't like what's happening in your business, because your business is a mirror, then you may need to look yourself and start with the person that's looking in the mirror. Because what happens is you could have everything correct, right? And if something is off, something is missing, something is not clicking the way that it's supposed to be, more than likely it's not the business.

Yeah.

It's the owner. And this is what we mean by having the proper identity.

Yeah.

Talk to me a little bit about your thoughts as it pertains to the identity of someone.

Yeah.

When it comes down to their business, what does that look like?

So simply, like, a lot of people, when it comes down to identity, I hear a lot of people with the words that come outta people's mouth, or when they try to start a business, they say, hey, I'm gonna try this, or I'm gonna, you know, I'll try it out and see if it works. Or like, hey, I might not be good enough. Or what if this doesn't happen? Or what if this, or I'm not the best at this, right? A lot of things that I see when it comes down to business is how people talk, right? And how people talk is literally a reflection of how they think. Because that alone tells you if you can help somebody or not. Like if you don't believe that you can help somebody, how is somebody else they're gonna believe that you can help them. Absolutely. So one thing that I noticed is that a lot of people, what they do is they typically, the words that they use, they're always going in towards a negative direction instead of a positive direction. So like instead of saying, hey, I'm bad at this, say, hey, I'm better at whatever, right? Like whatever that looks like, right? So one thing that most people do is they typically, think small when starting a business. And I see that they literally like their mind is just like in all of these different places. And oftentimes that's because they're looking at the bigger picture and they're looking at, hey, I want to make $1 million, I want to do this, I want to do that. But they're not looking at the words that they say every single day. So like a lot of people don't know this, but now you probably do. Kenneth Williams is a pastor. So like, Let's talk a little bit about words. Like, you know, God says that we are the head and not the tail. We are above and not beneath. And like the words that he says about us is even positive. And in the Bible, it shows that like, man, like what he says about us is like positivity. He's not talking down. He's talking up, right? So like, how much do words really matter in life? Because I know that, you know, the tongue is very, very powerful. So like, Let's start there.

Yeah.

With the words, right?

Yeah.

What are some things that people can say to themselves or even get from like a biblical principle to even know like, man, this is who I am, or like, this is how I am supposed to speak about myself, or this is what this looks like so they can get that character-building moment for theirself.

Yeah. But that's the hard part, Lecedric. Yeah. I think most people, I wrote a book a few months back called "Dismantling Strongholds." And one of the things that I talk about in the book is dismantling the idea that I'm not good enough. Or dismantling the idea that I'm going to self-sabotage something or self-sabotage my business or my relationships or these things. And this stuff comes from, And I talk about it in the book. These come from seeds that were sown early on in life. These were seeds. And all we're seeing now is the manifestation, the harvest of those seeds that were sown.

Right.

And so in order to starve, if you will, those kinds of beliefs, you have to pull it up from the root, right? If you pull a flower from the ground, and it has no way to pull nutrients from, nothing to pull nutrients from, that flower is going to die. And it is my firm belief that we have to kill, excuse the phraseology here, but we have to starve and dismantle these beliefs by pulling it up from the roots so those beliefs can die. And so when you talk about words that can be that need to be said or things that we need to, you know, have, like when we talk about positive affirmations and that sort. You can't even begin to have positive affirmation if your root is grounded in negative.

Right.

You see what I'm saying? If your root is there. So we have to start first with dismantling those things and pulling those things up from the root.

Right.

What does that mean for a business owner? That means literally that instead of you saying, as you were alluding to just now, Man, I don't know if I can do this.

Right.

Or saying, man, I'm bad at doing this, or I don't have enough money, or—

A lot of people think it's money.

Yeah. Or I don't have the proper skill set.

Or I don't have the systems.

Right. All of these things, instead of saying that, say, let me improve here, or let me develop here. Right. You see what I'm saying? Like, we have to flip it. I'm improving. I'm improving here, right? And you're actually taking steps to do it.

Yeah. Right.

And so I think it begins there. Just in my own belief in what I teach my students is that you have to start with your why.

Yeah.

You got to start with why you're doing what you're doing. Right. And then you will begin to see that, okay, this is worthwhile. Yeah. It's not a vibe. It's not, you know, me, you know, coming up with an idea and running with it. Right. Right. but it's something that I'm passionate about.

Right.

And I think that's very, very important.

Yeah, that is important. So like what I have found is that you're typically your why, like if we're on why, your why is typically not a what. It's not the money. It's not the, hey, I'm going to make $1 million and do this. It's literally typically a who, right? It's, it's who is it for, right? Maybe that's your family. Maybe that's your wife. Maybe that's yourself, your kids. Whatever the case may be. And a lot of people don't distinguish like why they do what they do. That's right. And all we see is like, even in the webinars that I talk about, like I ask them, hey, what are your goals in real estate? And most people say, hey, I want to do 5 deals by the end of the year. Hey, I want to do $10,000 a month, $20,000, $30,000 a month. But like when we talk about like being passionate, people go into conversations or business transactions in, in a mindset of thinking, man, what can I get from it? Instead of asking, hey, what value can I provide? And a lot of people don't want to provide the value because they're looking so much at the monetary aspect. Like they, they start turning the sale off, if that makes sense. Like you ever had a conversation with somebody and like you were talking about one certain thing and you see that there's almost like an ulterior motive because they're not even sticking like a, sticking on the topic of what you're talking about, it's more about them than more about like the benefit of both of you. Right. And one thing that I have learned is that like there's a difference between like convincing and there's a difference between persuading. And the difference between persuading is literally— persuading is literally getting somebody to do something that you want for your benefit. And convincing is leading somebody to a decision that they already want to make. So if we talk about leading somebody to a decision that they already want to make, you're getting them out of their way. And how do you do that? It's by the value that you simply provide.

Absolutely.

Yeah, man, that's, that's powerful.

Yeah.

So let's talk about this next thing of like the nervous system because like a lot of people don't know that our business has a lot to do with our nervous system and how much we can handle. Right. So I'm going to let you talk about this and start this one off right here.

Yeah.

When it comes down to the nervous system here, tell us a little bit about this? Because somebody is like right now watching this like, wait, nervous system? What are you talking about right now? Like, where are you going with this?

Listen, listen, business is its own nervous system. It's a sport, right? It's really, truthfully, how much tension can you handle, right? Because you go from one challenge to the other challenge.

Yeah.

And you know, you mentioned earlier about some of the business ventures that you and I have come into and that over the years. And one of the things that I used to teach all the time was to be solution-oriented, right? Every problem has a solution. You just have to find what the solution is. And most of the time that takes a person who can handle tension. Who can handle challenges, who don't fold when things get tough.

Yeah.

Or gets hard. Yeah. Or, you know, that, that client that did not pay that, that, that invoice.

Yeah.

Or, you know, that—

so many emotions behind it. Yeah. Literally.

Yeah. So it's really, it's really understanding that business is a tension sport.

It is.

How you regulate it is what's going to determine how successful you're going to be.

Let's— and before— sorry to cut you off, but look—

No, go ahead. That's good.

So when we talk about tension, I want to really explain to our viewers, like, when we talk about tension, what does this mean? So like, for example, I used to work at very fast-paced jobs like McDonald's, you know, Sawgrass Steakhouse. And if you've ever been to a steakhouse on a Friday night, God help me, right? You see so many people crowding in. And if you have ever— if you think to yourself, if you have ever saw a super, super busy restaurant or a long line, that's tension. The workers are working under tension because what they're having to do is literally solve about 3 to 4 problems every single hour. And it's back to back to back to back. Right. So like when we talk about tension, that's exactly what we mean by tension. So if you have ever been in a fast-paced environment where you have to go to one subject to another, doing one thing to doing another thing, I really think that it's important that you understand that that's tension.

Hone in on that a little bit more.

Yeah.

Because that's a perfect example of what happens when you're in a fast-paced environment. Yep. And the order is delayed.

Yeah.

And now you have some angry customers.

Now you gotta deal with that.

Now you gotta deal with that.

Who are ordering?

Right. Then you gotta deal with the kitchen.

Yep.

I've never worked in fast— well, I have. I worked in fast food when I was 17. I worked at Sonic. I sure did. But one thing that I remember is I never dealt with the front. I was always on the fryer. Right. But one thing I can remember in just hearing you talk is that whenever you're dealing with the kitchen, you're dealing with the customer, you're dealing with the delay of the food, you're dealing with the head hostess that's up the front. There's, hey, I need these tables, I need all these different things that are happening, right? And you talk about tension. What do you do when now you're being criticized and it's not even your fault?

Right, right.

You're the middle person. You're the one just bringing the orders and taking the orders. That's it, right? But somehow, some way, you're responsible for the steak not being ready, or you're responsible for the steak not being well done or being cold a little bit. Right, right. So, so it's these things that I think business owners or would-be business owners need to really— a dysregulated person. And when I say dysregulated, I mean a person that don't know how to handle tension. A dysregulated person's business will never make it to market. Because even the challenges of starting the business. Yeah, there's so much that you face.

A lot, right? The best.

And that's why I say, FYI, get you a coach, get you a mentor.

Like, literally, you a coach.

I'm telling you, it will change the game for you. A lot of the stuff that most entrepreneurs— I'm gonna say that to the camera— a lot of the things that you will have to go through as a business owner And even before you start, before you get into business, a lot of those things can absolutely be navigated and people can guide you through those things. But if you don't have a coach or a mentor that can help you walk through those things, man, that's a lonely road. Yep. It really— take it from me. Yeah. I didn't have a mentor.

Nope.

I had— I went to the school of hard knocks, you know what I'm saying? And those types of things. But But yeah, I mean, it's, it's that tension that— and if you don't— I'm telling you, if you don't know how to regulate your nervous system, yeah, you will fold. You will collapse. Yep. You will do it. People, people see all the Instagram stuff and, oh, business is nice, oh, with all the money you're making and all that stuff, but they don't talk about this kind of stuff. No, man, they don't. You know what I'm saying? This is the kind of stuff that really matters. So regulate yourself.

Absolutely. Because you are going to be dealing with like all, like starting out with the business, you're going to have to understand that you're going to be dealing with like every single hat in the business. Every, so we, everything flows down literally from like the lead conversion. So we got lead conversion, we got the marketing aspect, we got the lead management side. Um, even before that, you got the admin side where you got to create the LLC. Create the spreadsheets and manage this.

So like SOPs, all of the KPIs that you get to use, the product, the marketing, the all that you are wearing, all of these hats.

All of the hats.

Yeah. Yeah, man.

So it takes a strong-minded individual and most importantly, a solution-oriented individual to handle these things. So like you can easily become a solution-oriented individual by doing this every time a problem pops up, whether that be business or personal, test this in your personal life. Think about how you react to a situation because that's gonna tell you everything about what you need to fix. So like, how short is your temper when something happens, right? The second thing here is, is like, where does your thinking go to when a problem pops up? Like, does it pop up to, does it go to, man, I'm about to complain about this, right? Because let's be honest, we've all complained about something that probably was literally small and we didn't need to complain about, right? But that's another thing. And then one activity that I have done to become this person, y'all, because it's like all about becoming the person, one thing that I do is every time a problem pops up, I literally try to figure out 3 solutions that I can bring to the table. Instead of like the frustration, instead of the nervousness, instead of all of this other stuff, I'm figuring out 3 solutions to every single problem that I have. And if there are none and it's out of my control, I do not worry about it. Like there's some stuff that is out of our control that we literally don't need to worry about. And it's like there's nothing that we can do about it. So like we just have to leave it be and it'll figure itself out. So like, yeah, I think that's important.

Yeah. And you're really, You're hitting on something that I think kind of segues into the next point, which is recoding your thinking. Like it's, and we talked a little bit about it before, but this is a little bit deeper. When you're talking about recoding your thinking. And you know, I've gotten into this thing called neurotheology, okay? It's neuroscience, but it's the marriage between, religious beliefs and science, right? And there's a fact that says that people who genuinely walk by their faith develop new neural pathways in their brain. And those usually override any negative experiences or negative occurrences that have taken place in their life, right? It's called Neurotheology. Check it out when you get a chance. Yeah, yeah, I am. But I'm only mentioning this because I want people to realize what we mean when we say becoming the person. Yeah. It's literally the science behind that is really developing these new neural pathways within the construct of the brain.

Right.

And you do that every time you learn a new skill.

Okay.

You do that every time you speak affirmations, you speak positively, as opposed to speaking negatively. Watching the words. Absolutely. And all of these things, right? So, and I share with my students all the time, listen, don't say this is hard. Say I accept the challenge. It's different, right? It's a challenge. I acknowledge it as being a challenge, right? But I'm not going to say this is hard.

Nothing is hard, right?

It's a challenge. And I am up for the challenge, right? And so when we rethink how we approach things, right, the perspective, that's, that's what I mean when I talk about recoding a person's thinking. How do you think that plays in the person even before they start their business and before they get into, you know, buying the LLC and all of the other, you know, the things that Instagram is telling everybody to do, right? How do you think that play into a person's living? Like recoding the way they think, how important is that? Is that really, really genuinely important? Really?

I think that it's all about perspective, right? Like just now you just said, hey, don't believe that it's hard. Like it's something that's a challenge, but it's not necessarily hard. I like what Myron Golden says. He says that like perfecting how you do something and how you think. Because it's like nothing is hard. Like, think about this. When you first started learning how to ride a bike, right? You needed the— what do you call those?

The training wheels.

Training wheels, right? Yeah. And then eventually, you know, it was a challenge. It was not hard. It was just a challenge. But then once you started taking the training wheels off and you start riding regularly, it became easy. You're like, man, this is easy. Right? So why is it that, like, side note, why is it that we can say, man, when we learn something, we feel super happy about it and elated about it? Why is it that, oh, it's easy, right? But then when we face a challenge, oh, that's hard. Like, no, it's a challenge. So you have to change your perspective and how you look at things. Instead of looking at it like in a negative light, you have to always think about the positive side to it. So instead of, Hey, I messed up. I'm a failure. Hey, what can I learn from that? What did I learn from this that I can implement next time? Because business is all about feedback. Life is all about feedback.

That's right.

So it's like every single time that we do something, life is not gonna end. It's not just gonna, everything gonna turn black. We literally learn how we can do something the next time even better.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

So like when we talk about perfecting and actually becoming the person and just doing these things, y'all, Think about the first time that you tied your shoes. Really hard, really challenging, right? But once you started doing it, once you do it now, very, very easy. It was just a challenge. So reframing the way you think and your perspective on things and how you look at things is very important because like, let's be honest, if somebody looks out of a 4-seal window, right? Everybody could see different things and everybody sees different things. They seen, they could see a car wreck and everybody, somebody saw, you know, the wheel pop off. Somebody saw two cars collide. Somebody saw the person's head jerk. Somebody saw the birds in the sky. Right? So like everybody sees something different and like how you just reframe your thinking is just really, really important. Not only in business but in your personal life because that frames into your business because you're a mirror. Like your business is a mirror for you.

I like that. And, and, and the fact that, um, you, we're, we're even talking about recoding the mind, it really lends to what you were just saying as far as everything that we do is feedback. So when you said feedback, the first thing I thought about were data points. These are all facts, right? So it's being positive, but not so positive to the degree that you don't think accurately. Does this make sense? So, so it's, it's more so of let me see what this is as opposed to how I feel about what this is. Does that make sense? And so for business owners and for people who are aspiring to be business owners, take what comes in front of you and separate facts from feelings. Don't add feelings to the prop, to the situation. I tell my mentees all the time, you will fail miserably If you will not— your business will not make it to market if you are always putting a feeling behind something, right? This is why I tell my mentees, get out of your feelings. Quit getting into your feelings. There is no feeling in business. There isn't. Now you have the front end, what I like to call the front end, where you're dealing with the customers and it always has to be rose petals and, you know, you know, where's all the toys, right? Yeah, all of that. It's going to be that. But when you talk about the infrastructure and the back end of your business, there's no feelings there, right? It's only what's happening, what the challenge is. And then here's the best thing about it. What do I glean from what I'm seeing, right? I have to think accurately, not think with feelings. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it, man.

Yeah, that's very important. So when it comes down to that, I think that's really, really good. Uh, because when it comes down to talking to people and we talk about communication, like, oh man, communication is so very important. So like, now we went from dealing like on the grill to actually dealing with the customer in the window.

Yeah.

How do you deal with this customer in the window that's like, hey, you ain't put enough soda in my drink, or like, exactly right, can you give me 4 or 5 more sauces? Like, yeah, that, that That is so important to know and learn how to talk to people, how to literally not go to the negative side of how you think.

If you cannot communicate, you can't convert.

That's true.

And if you can't convert, you won't last in business. That's just all there is to it.

True.

And so mastering the art of communication, which is the ability to hear what somebody else, your customer, to be able to hear what they don't say and feel, feel what they are feeling. If you can master that art, you will always convert. But if you cannot communicate, man, you won't make it.

Yeah.

That's all there is. Yeah, man. Really, really important.

So let's talk about a little bit, touch on like the communication aspect. Like One thing that I typically do when it comes down to communicating is most people will come to you with a problem, like let's say a business owner or somebody you're trying to help in business. People that I typically see who are trying to grow their business or marketing or whatever the case may be, they come to me with a question, but like differentiating that question from the perspective that they have in framing framing this to a way where they're not really asking this question. We're really breaking down a belief now and knowing how to, to really see that aspect and break that down is really, really important because you're not really coming off as like bossy or like confusing. Like you're, you're really wanting to break down this way of clarity and give them clarity in their business. So knowing how to communicate the value is very, very important is where I'm going. So one thing about communicating the value, a lot of people typically what they want to do is they want to talk about tactics and this and that. But like really what's most important is, man, how can I help this individual? Um, how can I help them go to the next level? How can I do this? And this is just for like, you know, the business owners, right? So like, let's translate this for the person who's starting a business. Like, What are some how can I's for like this business owner? Like before they even get into the business, how can I maximize my marketing? How can I stand out from everybody else? How can I be unique? Like these are some things that I think is very, very important when we talk about not only communication, but like the way that you think before you even get into business. Right. So like, tell me, what is the number one thing that you have seen in business that new business owners typically do before they even get in?

Well, first of all, you have to master the art of listening.

Yeah.

You know, if you don't know what your customer need, it doesn't matter how great your product is.

That's true.

If it does not meet their need, and it probably will.

Yeah.

But if it doesn't meet their need and their pain point at the moment that that particular product meets them, Yeah, you've lost. You have to know how to communicate those things, communicate their feelings so that they can know that you understand. Yeah. What they are dealing with, right? And that comes with listening. If you don't listen and you don't know your market, you don't know your customer. Who is your customer? What do they like to eat? Literally, What pain points are they feeling right now?

Right, right.

What do they like to do on a Saturday afternoon?

Right.

You know, what do they like to— what is their favorite pastime? You know what I mean? Like, literally, you have to get into the weeds of knowing what your customer looks like. I call them avatars or character personas, right? You know, understanding who they are. So that you can properly communicate to them. Doesn't matter how good your product is. If it doesn't meet their need at the moment, your product meets them just as good as it's there, as good as it's gone.

Yeah, absolutely.

Just the truth.

Yeah, that's true. So like listening, long story short, what we're saying here is, is that listening is key, man. And talking too much gets you nowhere.

No way.

You have to understand how to communicate your value. But you only can do that by listening and understanding where your current customer is. Because if we talk about like a customer journey of the person that you're looking to help, you have to understand what part of the journey they're in to even, to even be able to help.

Man, that's good.

It's very important.

That's good right there.

We can touch on customer journey a little bit.

Listen, don't do it.

Don't you do it. When I— let's give y'all something else. Like, let's talk about this. So When we talk about a customer journey, there are so many things that can be broken inside of a business. And like, let's talk about customer journey. Like, what do I mean by customer journey? We're talking about from when a person learns about you to like what that next step is. People were coming on this podcast right now and they're probably going to say, man, how can I learn about this? Or how can I— where, what does that customer journey look like? Is this somebody who has not started a business? Is this somebody who's struggling in their business? Is this somebody who has gotten some success, but like maybe there are some mindset blockages there that are holding them back from getting to the next step? Like, what have you seen that like in this customer journey? I've seen a lot of people who's like, they just cannot convert this person from here to here, right? What is the most important thing that you have seen that people can make better in their customer journey so they can convert better and get better revenue, get more revenue.

Know who you are. Know your business.

Yeah.

Be obsessed with your business, with your industry. Be obsessed with what you bring to the table.

Yep.

If you are still unclear about who you are, you're— who you are is still on trial, right? You're trying to figure out who you are. You're going to crash and burn, right? Period. When you— and let's dive into it a little bit deeper as it relates to the customer journey. So the customer journey is from the time that customer learned about your product to the time that they purchase and then even beyond, because now they're in your ecosystem and now how are they treated? How are they nourished? How are they being fed in your ecosystem?

Right.

Are they growing in your ecosystem or are they just stagnant and starving? Right. Well, most of the time that ecosystem that even before the customer get there is not a— is not one that's going to produce anything. You have a system, but it's not economically sound. You won't be able to grow anything from it. Yeah, it's like having a garden, right? In order to have a garden, you must first know the kind of soil that you have. What are the nutrients in your soil? What's needed in your soil? Okay, I have to match the seed that I have with the soil that I have. There's no reason to put tomatoes in the soil that don't have the density or the nutrients, I should say, to produce the type of tomato that I wanna produce. So my point is, is that you first gotta know who you are as a company And then as we progress and as we move and the customer move from one point A to point Z, you have an opportunity to teach that particular customer everything that you've learned, everything that you know that's going to meet their need. And so I would always say one of the biggest things I would tell people who are developing their ecosystem or even businesses that are looking to develop the ecosystem, start with who you are. Yeah. Start with your product. Start with what you offer. That's where it begins. Yeah. Because once they get in there, they're going to find out real quickly you don't really know nothing. Exactly.

You don't really have—

You can't fake the funk. Yeah. No, look, the market will tell you something. Now you hear me? Absolutely. I always tell people, listen, and I know this is off topic, but listen, you trying to go get an LLC.

Yep.

You trying to go get a business loan and you haven't even put your business to market yet to see if the market want what you have.

Exactly.

You see what I'm saying? The market will tell you everything you need to know.

Yeah.

That's why I always say beta test it, put it in the market. Let's see what this is.

Absolutely.

Once you do that, you'll know. It'll tell you what they need. And all you have to do is put what they need in your ecosystem. And now your customer becomes your customer for life. We call it CLV, your customer lifetime value. That customer stays in your ecosystem. Well, yeah, I say it a lot, but yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. That's very, very important. So like This last thing we want to leave them with is the most important thing that we've probably said. But like a lot of people will take all of this information that they're going to get on the podcast and they'll— it'll probably go in one ear and one out the other. And like, this is the very important thing that you need to understand.

I think I know where you're going to go.

You have to execute. You have to execute without permission. Like, what you do behind the scenes is more important than what people, like, what you try to do in front of people. Like, a lot of people will try to get confirmation from other people. And then when other people don't see the vision or when other people literally say, man, they don't really believe, then they're like, man, I don't know if I can, or I don't know. And then now another belief turns negative because they're like, man, I'm listening to everybody else instead of like listening to myself. So long story short, like for one, when it comes to people, no, everybody is not going to see your vision. For one, it does not matter who does not see your vision as long as you have, as long as you understand who you are and as long as you understand your vision, But most importantly, you have to execute on everything that you learn. We just actually talked about this earlier. The most successful people that we know, including us, has failed more than every single person that's not successful, right? So like the epitome of being— I don't care what you want to call it— rich, successful, wealthy, The people who are those titles right there, they have failed more than everybody else because they've built up their arsenal of nos more than everybody else. They built up the things where they get declined more than once, 100 times, 200 times. But as long, it only takes one time to be right.

That's right.

So like, long story short, you have to execute without permission and you have to execute without perfection because nothing is ever gonna be perfect.

That's the line between dreamers and builders. Builders, right? Dreamers always dream big but never execute. Builders execute with relentless abandonment. They always have the mindset that I have to build, right? Right. And they're relentless with it. They don't care about justifications. They don't have excuses. They don't lay in the bed at 10 o'clock in the morning and then work a little bit and then go to bed at 7 or 8 o'clock in the evening. Right? These are people who have a reckless abandon as it relates to, I mean, they are relentless. Okay? And so I say that because most of the time people look to be rewarded and they look to be applauded because of the idea that they have. But the world does not, and I repeat, the world don't care about your big idea. What they care about is the person that's going to execute.

Exactly.

And execution is everything, bro. Absolutely everything.

So many people typically spend time saying, hey, I'm getting ready to launch, man, or I'm preparing this and completely, like, completely disregarding that. Like, when you put something out there, like, have you ever seen like an album, right? You've seen how they promote it. They have the behind the scenes, they have, they're showing the process, right? Of what this building looks like and they're doing it and they're executing, right? But like, and that does really, really well because people are, you're building the anticipation, they're actually executing, they're doing the thing, right?

Right.

But people who are preparing for something, oh man, what they like, what they end up finding out is that the time is never going to be perfect. And when you just drop something out of the blue, they're like, oh man, I'm thinking everybody's going to buy this or everybody's going to mess with this. And it's like, nobody cares. Yeah, just do the work.

Yeah.

Show the— like, I encourage all of my business owners, show the behind the scenes, show what you're doing. Like, we have other cameras rolling while we're like, while we're setting up, while we're doing this, while we're having conversation. And that's very, very important. So like, instead of trying to prepare, just do, just do. Like, that's all you have to do is just do it. Because at the end of the day, you're gonna make mistakes. You're going to have shortcomings, you're going to have successes. But at the end of the day, you cannot see success without the mistakes, without the initiation, without like doing the work. You have to do it. So I think that's very important.

Yeah. And I'll share this last piece if I can.

Yeah.

I heard this, I think I shared it with you. Kevin O'Leary was on a podcast and I forget the name of the podcast. Yeah. But he talked about something that I think is incredibly important for every business owner. And maybe I'll find it and I'll tag it somewhere on—

It's the Stephen Bartlett one, right?

That's the Stephen Bartlett.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The one with the diary of the CEO. So just look up Kevin O'Leary, Stephen Bartlett diary of the CEO.

And that's not a paid advertisement, but I know a shout out to Steve Bartlett. Amen. All right.

Yeah.

But, but Kevin O'Leary said something very powerful, and I think it's worth repeating. And I know I'm not going to do it justice, so go, go and check it out. But what he said was he used to work for Steve Jobs before he became Mr. Wonderful, as he is. Exactly. And one of the things that he learned from Steve Jobs is that he had a signal-to-noise ratio, right? Signal-to-noise ratio. And basically what it is, is that he saw Steve Jobs was always on his grind. He was only on what he was doing. Right. In other words, and the way Kevin O'Leary spoke about it, the signal is you're always constantly doing the work.

Yeah.

I mean, you're so focused, you're locked into, you know, what you have to do every single day.

In fact, 24 hours.

In fact, 16 hours out of the day, you know exactly what every single second of the minute of the hour, you know what is going to be happening. That's the signal. And he said that he saw, he thought that Steve Jobs was 80% signal, 20% noise, meaning that little bit of noise that he, that it just didn't.

And then when you say noise, what do you mean by noise?

So, so noise is the hanging out with your friends. It's the doom scrolling on your Facebook and Instagram.

Okay.

It's the going out to eat when you really should be doing something else. Right? That's the noise. And so he said that he felt like Steve Jobs was 80% signal, 20% noise. And then he said that he— one of the examples that he used, and I'm telling you, just go back and watch it. I know I'm doing it, not doing it any justice, but he said that Elon Musk, he said he 100% signal, 100%. Like he has no noise.

Crazy.

And so it's very awkward for him when he's in social settings because he's so accustomed to having— being in the signal. He don't know how to really just socialize. Right.

It's awkward.

So, so I'm only mentioning this because we're talking about execution.

Yeah.

And execution is having a greater signal than the noise. Yeah. Right. And I started implementing that in my own personal life as well as in my business life. And I find that I was literally 60% noise, 40% signal. That's where I was. And I had to be honest with that. I had to be real with that. And so as successful as I've been able to be, thank God, no beating up my own drum here, but as successful as I've been able to be, the issue is how much more successful could I become if I get rid of the noise and increase the signal, right? So I want to just share that with, with our viewers, that in order for you to really see success, get rid of the noise. Get rid of the noise. Yeah. And find yourself locked in to the signal, right?

Very—

like, I just got that signal.

Exactly. So last thing, quick example of that, the 80/20 rule, right? Essentially, what, um, an example of what you can go out and do you have 24 hours in a day, right? Let's just say you're woke 16 or 18 hours, whatever the case may be. 16 hours. What you want to do is take the 3 to 5 essential things that move the needle and in the next 24 hours get it done and rinse and repeat and make sure that you have 80% signal and 20% noise. So all of the random phone calls that you get, Doom scrolling, all of these things. Keep it at a minimum. Do the work, keep the noise at a minimum, and you will be successful.

Let's do it. I love that. I love that. And you said moving the needle. Yeah. That means that you're not paying attention to anything else. Yeah. Right. You know that this is mission-critical work.

Right.

Right. So there's no justifications, no excuses. I have to get these 3 to 5 things done today and there's no excuse for it, right? I have to get it done. That's the signal. I love that, man. Man, I'm telling you, man, works great. It works, man.

It works.

Do it, do it, do it.

Tried it, done it, seen it work. And it even works for my mentees too.

So recap, man. What are the 5 things, man? Let's recap that real quick.

So the 5 things that we have here, y'all, that you should absolutely do. Number 1 is frame your identity. Yes. Knowing who you are is very, very important. Okay. Number 2 is owning your nervous system. You have to know how to regulate your nervous system. All right. Number 3 is recoding your thinking, reframing the way you think, your perspective and how you look at things. Because once your perspective changes, everything else does too. And then number 4 here is just being effective at communicating. If you are effective at communicating, you can convert better with your sales. And then the last thing here is execute without permission, y'all. You must execute effortlessly, y'all. And once you do that, you will definitely start to see the progress that you make in your business. And then the bonus here real quick is the 80/20 rule, because you need to implement the 80/20 rule into your life, y'all, because What you do is you start cutting out all of, of, of the noise, the distractions, and all of these things. Because like, long story short, if you're trying to keep it 50/50, I promise you it is not going to work. You're not going to be successful, which is why we have the 80/20 rule and the 100/0 rule, etc., etc. All right. So do those things, y'all. And I appreciate you for showing up. Comment what you feel like the best thing was for you in this podcast, and we'll see you on the next episode, y'all. See y'all later.