TES 007 - Your Most Important Decision as an Entrepreneur

Hey there, real quick before we jump into the episode, listen, if your earnings treadmill hasn't set you free yet, running faster won't either. Listen, hustle without principles just going to burn you out. So here's what I want for you. I want you to join me for my money machine experience live. It is three free trainings. Deep dive into how to escape the treadmill and build a money machine that actually works for you. All right, grab your spot here by going to moneymachinelive.com and I'll see you in the free training. Hey there. I'm Mel Abraham, the author of the Entrepreneur Solution, the founder of Business Breakthrough Academy, where we teach you how to design a business and create a life, a life of financial freedom and peace of mind. And welcome to this episode of the Entrepreneur's Solution show. And in this episode, we're going to dive into, we're going to begin to dive into my three phases of business life or product life, framework and model. And this is, if you recall, we talked about this, I introduced this to you a couple of episodes ago, the process that we use to take a product and a business and bring it to life. And so we're going to start to break that down in each of the upcoming episodes to give you some tools, some tactics and some strategies to start to implement and execute it in your life, in your business, with your ideas and your products. So stay tuned after this brief introduction and we'll come back with the very first episode of dealing with the three phases of business life framework.

Welcome to the Entrepreneur Solution, where highly successful entrepreneur Mel Abraham becomes your entrepreneurial mentor. Here, Mel reveals his business building strategies and even gets a chance to answer your questions. Mel Abraham, a CPA by education, but an entrepreneur by exhilaration and a true believer in the entrepreneurial way of life. It's through entrepreneurship that we create community, support society and live our dreams.

It's where possibility meets reality again and you can have the life and lifestyle you want. One of freedom and peace of mind. Welcome to this episode of the Entrepreneur's Solution where it's time for you to be bold, dream big and live life your way.

Hey there, I'm Mel Abraham. Welcome back to the Entrepreneur's Solution show. I am the author of the Entrepreneur's Solution and the founder of Business Breakthrough Academy, where we teach you how to design a business and create a life, a life of financial freedom and peace of mind. In this episode, I'm really excited because we're going to start to really dig into some of the Nuts and bolts. Remember we talked about in one of the earlier episodes about a business of meaning and the above the line and the below the line concepts. Once we get this concept of meaning taken care of, the above the line, which is legacy and lifestyle defined and taken care of, we can start to deal with some of the below the line things. The mechanics of business and some of the mechanics of business fall under this framework that I call the three phases of business life. And we talked about the concept that there's three different phases. First is the think up phase, which is really where we do the design, the mindset, all of the culture things, the modeling. Before we ever bring anything to market. We spend a fair amount of time doing a variety of things in the think up phase. And there's three stages in that phase, as we talked about. And then we go from the think up phase to the get up phase. This is where we start to move forward and we bring it to market. We start to think about how do we plan for it, how do we structure it, how do we finance it, what do we do to bring it to market. And then the third phase, the third phase is really about the reach up phase. This is where we build it, we grow it, we scale it, and in fact even possibly exit it, whether it's a liquidity event or a sale. And so in the upcoming episodes, we're going to break down each of these phases and each of the stages in each of these phases as we go through it to try to give you some tools, some tactics, some strategies to start to implement them. Because I believe, I truly believe that this is the process that every product, every business must go through to really create sustainable success, to allow yourself to come about with high probability of success. It's not about just an idea, it's not about just being creative. It's not about just flippantly going out excited about some concept that you came up with, but it's about creating strategy tactics and tools around it, systems around it that allow you to grow, allow you to scale, to create something. It's the only way that you're going to create something that doesn't suck the life out of you. To do it intentionally, to do it purposefully, to do it in the context of what it is you're trying to create.

Entrepreneurs are not necessary. They're not followers at all. In fact, they're leaders. I truly, as you've heard me say before, I truly believe that the entrepreneurs are the recipe for solutions in our economy, in our country, in our communities, in our societies and globally, and that if we just take and allow them the opportunity to solve the problems of society, they'll come at it much more effective, much more efficient, and much more meaningful than anyone else. And so I think that the concept of entrepreneurship brings with it, by necessity, the concept of change, the concept of doing things differently, the concept of thinking differently. And that's really where we're going to look at this. And this think up phase has three stages in it, as we talked about earlier. It's got the decide stage in it, it's got the ideation stage in it, and it's got the model stage in it. We're going to hit on the decide stage. And there's a lot that goes into this. And I know some people will argue with me and say, no, doesn't the idea come first? And truth be told, the idea doesn't come first.

That's how a lot of entrepreneurs start, but that's how a lot of entrepreneurs struggle. And here's why, at least this is how I look at it, is that when you become an idea centric entrepreneur, an idea centric entrepreneur, which means that you're going to go from idea to idea to idea, a lot of times what you do is you rest your whole being, you rest your whole future, you rest your whole vision on a single idea.

If you've been in business any length of time or you're just going into business, this is one lesson you want to learn, that if you have something that has a single point of failure, then in all respects you've raised the risk level, you've raised the probability of failure tremendously. And so you want to resolve and dissolve all the single points of failure in your business. And so if I'm an idea centric entrepreneur, then my primary focus is going to be on taking one idea to market. And so that's why what I try to do is say let's put the idea aside from, let's put the idea secondary for a moment. Let's simply talk about being an entrepreneur. Because there's a whole lot of decisions, there's a whole lot of choices that come into play before we want to birth the idea and make it a reality. And so we want to understand that first. And when we make those choices correctly, then the idea, whatever the idea is, we're going to start to come up with ideas. Because then, then we're coming at it as an entrepreneur. We've taken on the identity of an entrepreneur first.

And then we'll take that identity of entrepreneurship and we're going to envelop and we're going to develop whatever ideas come in our. In our space because we're thinking like an entrepreneur. If you've met real creative entrepreneur types, they're always thinking, they're always creating. I mean, they can't go into a store without looking at things. How could I make this better? How could I make this more efficient? How could I do this differently if I were the owner? That's just their thought process. That's the way they're wired. That's the way they've been trained. That's the way they look at the world.

If and when you turn around and say, let me take this identity of entrepreneurship on first, let's make the decision that I'm going to be an entrepreneur first, then you're going to have so many ideas coming into your world that you're not going to be focused on just a single idea. Now, we're going to tell you to focus on a single idea, to take that forward, to bring that to market first, because you can't concentrate on a bunch of different ideas and be effective. But what it does do when you take on that entrepreneurship identity is it doesn't put all your eggs in one basket. Here's the cycle, if you want. It's. I call it the visceral work cycle. And this is what happens with a lot of entrepreneurs. They're sitting back, they may be sitting with their buddies, drinking, they may be playing cards, they may just be out with their spouse, and they see something go, I got an idea. I got an idea. And what if we did this and we did this? And all of a sudden you have this conversation about this concept that this will work. And all of a sudden there's a whole lot of passion there, there's a whole lot of energy, there's a whole lot of vibrancy there. And you're going back and forth going, this will work, this will work, this will work. And you start to move forward, and all of a sudden this will work changes, and it changes into will this work? And now you start doubting yourself, and you start doubting the process, and you start doubting the path, and you keep asking yourself, will this work? Will this work? Will this work? And you're going to be hearing the criticisms and the ridicules and all of the different naysayers in your life as you ask the question, will this work? Will this work? And then all of a sudden, you're going to start feeling like, no, it won't. No, it won't. And you start to doubt. And a lot of entrepreneurs will stop at that point. And then there's some that don't. They continue to go, they continue to go. And they go from this will work to will this work to oh my God, this is work. And it is, it is. There's a lot of energy that you need to invest to bring a business to life. But if you do it and you're not on the right path, it's going to feel like work, it's going to feel like Drudger, it's going to feel like slavery, it's going to feel like you sold your soul to the devil. It's going to suck the life out of you. So that's why these decision points that we want to make in business, we need to make early. We need to ask ourselves some of these questions early. And so as we go through some of these things in this whole three phase business life, three phases of business life model. In the upcoming episodes, what I invite you to do is get your journal out and make this your checklist. Now, there's going to be downloadable tools that you can get at the episodes. We'll have some downloadable tools, you'll have access to.

The transcripts and all of that, but I want you to do it in your own handwriting. There's a difference. When you start to scribe your own destiny, when you start to scribe your own future out on paper and start to think it through in that context.

Here'S the thing. In order to get over the hump of will this work? And oh my God, this is work, you've got to take on the identity of entrepreneur. When you take on the identity of an entrepreneur, you then know that you will run the miles, that it's not about the path that you want to take, it's about the destination you want to come to. And that destination is going to come out of a couple of different things. It's what you might hear people say. It's the why. Remember in the analyst model, I talked about the why we do business? And I think that this is that part of it. This why becomes the magnet for why you show up. This why becomes the energy and the push when things get rough. This why is, is the impetus that will move you Forward past the 18 mile marker when you're running the marathon of entrepreneurship where you hit that wall and you feel like you've got nothing left in you and it's what's going to allow you to step through and make a difference. So when we talk about this Why? I want you to think about this and I want you to start to answer these questions because your why may be for different reasons. And I'm going to give you examples of entrepreneurs that fall into each of these four categories of why. And there may be more categories of why. I just want to give you some food for thought as you start to reflect on why it is you're in business, why it is you want to be in business if you haven't started a business and what you want it to look like. And the first why entrepreneurs go into businesses is for passion. I mean, just sheer passion. You know, a good friend of mine, Peter Diamandis, he's the founder of xprize. And he is one of the smartest, most intelligent people I know in the world. And he's got a vast vision for the future. But his passion, his passion is about space. And it's always been about space since he was a child. And so what he did is he created XPRIZE to try and create.

He created a contest to create a spaceship to go to space. So we're eliminating all of the government red tape and NASA and all that, but can private industry create something that would allow them to go to space? And Peter Diamandis, through the passion he had for exploring space, created xprize. That was a phenomenal, phenomenal success. And he's gone on to take other passions in his life and build entrepreneurial endeavors around that. And Peter, so Peter Demandis is what I would call a passion driven entrepreneur that really creates the entrepreneurial endeavor, the business, everything around his personal passions in the world. And he's got some, if you research him, he's got some incredible things going on revolving around space, exploring space, mining in space that will boggle your mind. But the value he brings to society by bringing some of that down will affect energy costs, it'll affect how we live our lives. It is tremendous. And it's driven by his passion. Now, the argument could be made that all entrepreneurs are driven by passion. And they are, but there's a weighting, if you will, that.

That will weight them in different areas of these different whys. But I think that the successful, the successful entrepreneurs are driven by passion. The second why, and so the second why is purpose. Purpose driven. And one that comes to mind for me is Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla and was, but he's been involved with a lot of new industries, new industry developments, technological developments. But Elon is driven by a purpose, and he's driven by the purpose of using and capitalizing on electric energy and.

Not focusing on.

Petroleum fuels. He's driven by a purpose to find a cleaner way of living in our country, in our world, globally. And that's what's given rise to much of what he's doing. He's got a tremendously successful company in Tesla Motors that he's created. And he's also brought to life certain concepts, including the tube to high speed rail that is run through tubes and all that to bring clean energy, clean transportation, if you will, to our lives. So Elon Musk is what I would call a purpose driven entrepreneur. And then this would, you know, I would be flagrantly lacking if I didn't bring this up. Then there's the money driven entrepreneur and there's a lot of them that are out there. But the one that comes to mind for me is obviously is Donald Trump. I think he's driven, he's driven by the bottom line and that is it.

It's show me the money. He will work the deals solely driven by money. Not necessarily driven by purpose, not necessarily driven by passion. His passion is achieving, accomplishing and acquiring, quite frankly. So that's where his passion. So you could be a money entrepreneur, and I don't mean it in a negative way because even though you may be driven by money, you're still creating jobs, you're still creating products, you're still creating services, you're still serving society, creating community and allowing people to live their dreams. And then there's the other entrepreneurs that I would call transformational entrepreneurs. And that when I think about that, that's a Steve Jobs, a Bill Gates that they wanted to go out. When Steve Jobs wanted to introduce the iPhone, he was not talking about introducing just a simple cell phone. He was talking about revolutioniz industry. And when he came out on that stage to introduce the iPhone, that's exactly what he said. We're going to revolutionize the industry, just like he revolutionized the music industry to sit back and say a thousand songs in your pocket. And so Steve Jobs is what I would call a transformational entrepreneur that is looking to transform industry, to transform life, to transform a way of life, a way of belonging that he created, he created through Apple, a place, a community.

Almost a cult, like feeling around his customers, around his people in the process of transforming the way we see life and the way we do life. And so if you look at it, you've got passion, purpose, money, transformation. There may be more, but those are the four major types of entrepreneurs that exist. The four major types of why you want to Go into business, why you want to take this product out there, why you want to continue in business. And so I kind of ask you to sit back and reflect on that for a moment. Say, which one is you? What's driving you? What's driving you? Is it a passion that has been, that has been in you and burning in you for many, many years that you just want to explore? When I took over the karate school, that was based on passion, passion for the martial arts and really believing in that. Is it a purpose? Is it something that you want to solve in society? Is it like Tom's Shoes that is focused on also trying to serve children that are shoeless and to provide shoes for other children? Another great entrepreneur in the purpose driven space is, is Marcus Lemonis. He's the host of the Prophet. If you haven't seen the show, an amazing show on cnbc just plugging them for free. But Marcus Lemonis talks about purpose. He talks about process. He talks about people as one of the biggest purpose that he's in business, to change people's lives, to work for the underdog, to allow them to grow. Are you driven by money? And like I said, there's nothing wrong with it. Just be straight about it and know that that money, what's driving you, that's the kind of why that you have may or may not be enough of a why to take you through the tough times, to get you through that wall, to get you through that barrier when it happens. Or are you looking for transformation? Are you looking to change the world, change the society, change community, change how we do things in life? And so ask yourself those questions and see where you fit. And what is your why in entrepreneurship? Because that's what's going to drive you through the tough times. Then once we've decided what the why is, we need to ask ourselves some what questions, Some what questions. What do we want to create? You know, what, what is this? Is it a product? Is it a service? Is it a hybrid? Is it a bundle of something? Is it a product and a service? And being clear about what that is becomes important. And then am I going to do it as a for profit or a not for profit? We can do it as a not for profit depending on what it is. It has to be a community service type of product or service to be able to qualify as a not for profit or tax exempt entity under the code sections. Under the 501 code sections. 501 is your charitable donation code sections. For instance, I have a charitable foundation that deals with abuse and violence education with respect to abuse and violence against women and children. And that's a nonprofit that is a purpose driven, passion driven entrepreneurial endeavor. For me. That's the why and that's the what that we're dealing with there.

Once we understand the why and the what, we can start to dig more deeply into some of the other decisions you need to make in this stage of the three phases of business life and product life. We'll get to some of those other decisions in the upcoming episodes. In the meantime, if you like this episode, please go ahead and subscribe and share it with a friend. Share it with a friend and to get the takeaways in this episode, to get the Transcript or the MP3, go ahead and go to melabraham.com session007 that's melabraham.com session007 and if you want to ask me a question so I can bring it on the show and make sure that your questions are answered so I can support you and be your entrepreneurial mentor, go to melabraham.com ask that's melabraham.com ask and you'll be able to leave your question for me there and then I can pick it up and make sure that we get it on the show and get it answered for you. I hope you enjoyed this session of the Entrepreneur Solution. We'll be back for more on the upcoming episodes to still build in the three phases of business life and product life so we can get you through the whole process. And until we get a chance to see each other again, may your vision be grand, your journey epic, and your legacy significant. See you soon.

We hope you enjoyed this episode. Make sure you subscribe so you get access to all of Mel's business and success tips. And if you like this episode, share it with a friend. If you have a specific business or success question, you can ask it at www.askmelnow.com. remember, it's all about being bold, dreaming big, and living life your way because the world needs you. Until the next episode, may your vision be granted, your journey epic, and your legacy significant.

And that's it for this episode of Building youg Money Machine, where we help you learn how to master your money, eliminate financial stress, and live a life of choice. If you found this valuable or helpful to you, here's what I'd love for you to do. If you do me a favor, go to Apple, Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening to this podcast and rate and review the show. It helps us tremendously to keep us at the top of the list so we can continue to get this information and this message out to people, because I truly believe that financial freedom is your birthright, and I want to help each and every one of you claim it. Thanks so much.