TES 076 - How to Avoid Mistakes

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 number one best selling book the Entrepreneur's Solution and the founder of Thoughtpreneur Academy, where we teach you how to capture, package and monetize what you know so you can have more impact, more income, and more freedom. And welcome to this episode of the Entrepreneur Solutions show. And in this episode, I'm going to teach you how to learn from your mistakes before you ever make them. I'm going to teach you a process and a framework that I call the antithesis of advantage. It's a process that I go through when I'm typically going into a new venture, a new deal, a new program, a new product launch, a new opportunity where I'm starting to walk through what are the things that could happen. In other words, understanding and anticipate the potential issues or problems before they become real. Now, there's a downloadable tool and action guide for this episode. If you want to get that, just go to melabraham.com session076 and we'll make sure that we get that to you. And if you're not at your computer, maybe you're running around, you're at the store, you're at the gym, you're listening to this on your iPhone or anything like that, then just text me, text me to 384701 word my legacy to 38470. I'll send you the download link so you can get the maximum value out of this episode. So let's just jump in and let's look at this. This is about getting it wrong, Getting it right. How do you learn from your mistakes before you ever make them? So one of the things to think about is this. If we don't get this right, you know, if we, if we don't go through this type of a process, here's what ends up happening. You have completely, you have no clarity. You don't know necessarily what could happen, what might happen. You haven't taken the Time to really understand.

What the potential is that could go wrong. And if you don't have that, then the other thing is that because of a lack of clarity, a lot of times there's a lack of action. In fact, I'll tell you a story about a mentor of mine. I was struggling with one of my employees, one of my team members, years ago in one of the businesses I owned, and I said, God, you know, he's just not motivated. And I can't get him motivated. And I can't figure it out. I think I'm going to have to let him go. And my mentor looked at me. It was kind of Zen like. It was like he was sitting there and he says, oh. He says, are you sure it's not motivation? I said, well, he's not doing anything. It's got to be lack of motivation. He says, yeah. He says, it's interesting. He says, a lot of times we interpret it as lack of motivation when it's really lack of clarity. And he says, and if it's lack of clarity, that's your fault, not his. Boom. I mean, the reality is that if we have no clarity, typically we take no action because we're not sure what to do. We're not sure how to go about it, we're not sure what. Where to go with it. So if we don't get this right, you know, lack of clarity, and then you end up with no action. And ultimately, because you take no action, you get no results. I mean, you get results, but they're not the results that you want in the process. But if we take the time to go through a process to get that, you find that you'll find yourself in a position where you've got clarity and you have purpose, you've got direction. All of a sudden, things come into focus, and all the stuff that's distracted, distractions, the things that are moving you away from where you want to go, they just fall by the wayside. You ignore them. At least you realize that they don't impact you in a positive way. They don't move you towards your outcome. They don't move you towards the goal that you're going towards. So we get that clarity. We become more tunnel vision in the sense of moving towards our outcome and towards the purpose that we're in. And when we get this right, ultimately we. We take intentional action. And I think the key word there is that it's intentional. The idea here is that you can have action. I mean, you can be busy, but busy work doesn't mean that it's progress. So the key is that what actions do you need to take to move you forward? And those are the actions that we need to take. So we need to be really intentional about some very specific, very deliberate actions that are actually going to move us forward towards the outcome we want, towards the goal, to. Towards getting the thing accomplished that we're trying to accomplish versus kind of just a sail in the wind, just kind of going whichever way the wind blows. And so a lot of people I see struggle with that because they're not intentional in their lives or their businesses. So you look at it and say, if I want a good relationship, I need to be intentional about it. I need to work on it, I need to be directed about it. I need to take steps each and every day, day to make that happen. If I want a good business, I need to do the same thing. I need to be intentional. I need to be deliberate. I need to take steps each and every day if I want to build wealth or freedom. Again, you got to be intentional. You got to be deliberate. You need to take steps each and every day that move you towards that. And anything that distracts you, anything that is not deliberately towards that outcome is taking you away from it. So we need to be intentional in our actions. And ultimately what ends up happening is we get great results. So that's the kind of the why this is so, so important, to get it right. And that means then, all right, so if I understand why, you know, what happens if I get it wrong? What happens if I get it right? What do I need to know? Well, the first thing I think that you. You really need to know is to really understand.

That you need to be real. You need to be real with yourself. You need to be real about your capabilities, your capacities. What you want to be transparent first with yourself and honest with yourself, to be real with the people around you about what your capabilities and capacities are, what you can deliver, how you can deliver it, what are your skill sets, what are your strengths, what are your weaknesses, what are the challenges? What are the things that may be just. Just maybe we need to get someone else to help us with or get guidance and be real about it, be open about it and transparent about it. This can be a struggle to all of a sudden be vulnerable, to acknowledge that maybe you don't know it all. Because I can tell you I don't know it all. And I will ask for help. And I'm not, I'll be honest, I'm not the best at asking for help. And you know, I've got some really great mentors, some great friends, some great family members. They will kick my behind and say, you gotta ask for help. And it's something that I struggle with from time to time. But, you know, impact and.

You know, building something that is meaningful doesn't happen in a silo, it doesn't happen on an island, it doesn't happen as a solo pursuit. I mean, I think you hear the term about, you know, self made millionaire, self made billionaire. It's all hogwash. It's crap. I mean, it really is. Because the fact of the matter is that the success that I have today is not because of just me. Yeah, I had something to do with it because I was in it. But at the same time, there is a lot of people that I couldn't have, I don't have the time to list out that enabled that success, that supported that success that surrounded me with their, with our support, their love and their help to be successful. And it's on their shoulders, in their soul and in their heart, that I created that success and had that success. And I don't forget it. I'm grateful and it's been blessings throughout the process of doing that, even if there were bad things, because through the bad, we learn and we grow. And so bottom line is that there's been a lot of people that have contributed to that success. So being real about where you are, where you want to go, what your strengths are, what your weaknesses are, are really important. The second thing you need to know is know your target. I mean, where do you want to go? And if ultimately you're not sure where you want to go, then guess what, you're going to be spinning around or zigzagging and you may or may not get to your destination. And if you do get to your destination.

It'S by coincidence only. It's not because it was deliberate, it was not because it was intentional, it was not because it was directed. You know, it's as if you're going to go take a trip and you say, hey, let's just jump in the car and drive. Well, which way do you go? If you have no destination in mind, then it's a challenge. So you got to know your destination. You got to also look at what's the worst case, because it's through that worst case scenario, that worst case planning, that worst case looking at it, that you get a chance to grow. And I've had a lot of folks that, that have come to me for, you know, mentoring and consulting where I've sat with them, I said, well, what's the worst case? And we can evaluate and say here's the worst case scenario and we can one, do some things to make sure that that worst case scenario is at least mitigated, reduce the risk of that ever happening. Because we've thought about it already, we've anticipated it, or we may look at it and say worst case is too much of a worst case and we don't even do it. But I would suggest that if we do worst case planning, it's going to help us to raise the probability of success. And I'm going to give you the process that I use to do that in this video. So stay with me. That's called the antithesis advantage. So here's how this works. We're going to actually do some worst case planning. We're going to look at the worst case scenario. We're going to start to understand where we are from a value standpoint and a strength standpoint. I'm going to give you a framework and a process here. So you ready? Here we go. Let's jump in. So what I call the antithesis advantage and what we really do is we're looking at something that we want to accomplish. A skill, a goal, an opportunity. And I'm going to look at what are the skills on one hand what are the skills that are needed and on the other hand, what are the strengths and value ranking that exists. So what I'm going to do is look at the list of skills that I need to make something happen and I'm going to rank myself, I'm going to rate myself or my team or whoever it is on the level of strengths. Is it in my strengths from 0 to 10? And how much value is it? Another way to think about value is is it critical to the outcome? So for instance, if we're going to do if I'm going to do these videos or I'm going to go do an event, creating the content is high value. It's very critical to the outcome. Is it my strengths? It certainly should be and I think it is. So it's high on the strengths, but maybe doing some of the printing or maybe some of the admin, it may be high on my strengths, but from a value or critical standpoint, it's not something that I probably ought to be doing. So. So we're going to rate all of those. I'm going to give you a process to look at that. And this is the strengths value ranking system that I use. It's Really a quadrant model. So I've got little, just four boxes and I'm rating things on the upward axes. We're talking about the value. How critical is it to the outcome that we're trying to get? And on the bottom axis, we're going to look at it based on my strengths. Is it one of the strengths that I have? And if you look at the four quadrants in this model, if it's low on my strengths and it's low on a value scale, in other words, there's very little critical nature to it. Maybe it's responding to customer service emails, things like that, then that's something that I'm going to delegate. So I'm going to delegate those. So in that bottom quadrant, in that lower left box, we call that the delegator. But what happens if it's high on the values but not on the strength? In other words, it's really critical to the outcome, but it's not where my strength is. Well, that's when we need to become a scholar. That's when I need to study, that's when I need to work, that's when I need to learn. That's when I need to get with someone to help me out to move it and get my strengths on it because it's critical to the outcome. So to learn what it takes to be great at that particular skill. This will make sense because I'm going to take you through an example in a moment. Well, what happens if it's low on the value? In other words, it's not critical, but it's one of my strengths. For instance, I'm a CPA by education, so the numbers and the financials and the accounting and the bookkeeping and all of that stuff is a big strength for me. Is it of critical value? Probably not. The analysis and the review of it and the looking at it is of high value because it allows me to make some proper decisions in my business. But the actual doing of it is low value, low critical value from the standpoint of the outcome, then you have those elements that are high on the critical scale, high on the value scale and high on the strength scale. That's where you master, that's where you want to spend a lot of your time. So in delegator, I'm going to just delegate it out in the overseer, I'm going to oversee it, I'm going to review it, but I'm going to let someone else do it. Scholar, I need to learn it, I need to get good at it. And master is A place that we spend our time. So if you look at this, let's see how this comes to life with an example. And so we're going to come back to this, to the first worksheet. And here's how I look at this. Let's take an example of I want to go do a webinar. So I take it and say, all right, if I'm going to do my very first webinar or if I'm going to do any webinar, I got to look at it and say, all right, what are the skills that are needed? Well, I got to choose the topic. So I rank it and I said, is that of critical importance to the outcome? Yes, 10 on that scale. Is it of critical strengths? Yes, it's something that I do well. So bottom line is I'm going to rate it 10 over 10. Well, what about the next one? I got to create the presentation.

It's seven or eight on my strengths and it's ten on the value. It's highly critical and high on the strength scale. And technology to use what technology? This is one of the challenges that some people will look at. So technology, what technology should we use? Well, ultimately it's not necessarily one of my strengths to know all the technology. And in fact I have someone on my team, happens to be my son who is on my team that knows most of the technology. And when it comes down to doing it, I will usually have a conversation with him and a lot of times he's the one that will execute on the technology.

Is it critical to the outcome? Yes, it's critical, the outcome, but not extremely critical. So I rate it 3 to 6. How to market it. That's another skill set that we need. Well, it's not high, it's about mid lane on my strengths. I'm working on marketing more and more. Look, listen, I'm a cpa, so I didn't come from a marketing background, but I really believe that we can always improve our marketing, our communication. So I rated it at 5. What about the criticalness of it? 8. Let's look at the other ones. How to get people to show up. You know, someone might rate it as a 2 on strengths, but if I don't get people to show up on a webinar, then the webinar is not going to be successful. So it is very critical. So you're going to rate it really high on the critical nature. Now when I say rate it high, rate your ability, the level of your skill, not the importance to the outcome, but the level of skill, if it's truly important, the outcome, we got to get your skill level up to a 8, 9 or a 10 to make sure it runs. Because I'll look at it and say getting people to show up on a webinar, that is an importance of 10. But if your skill level is down at a 4, then we got to get it up to an 8, 9 or a 10. Hopefully that makes sense. Then you know, hitting your mark, meaning that the message gets conveyed. Well, you know, it's a matter of can you deliver the presentation in a way that has an impact? You know, is it in your strengths category, Is it in your criticalness category, the value ranking? And then last is, you know, what's next for them? How do you take them from the webinar to do something else with them and do the follow up? So, so this is an example. This is not necessarily me. I was just kind of going through the numbers. But you see what happens is now I look at this and I go, huh, there's a couple of weak points here that I need to think about. Make sure that I've got someone with technology. What about the marketing? What about getting people to show up, hitting the mark? All those things with the numbers that are below 8, I got to look at. I got to really start to.

Evaluate and say, do I need to bring someone on? Do I need to learn something on that? So let's take it to the second step of this. Now that I've listed out the skills and rated the skills, how do I use the antithesis advantage.

To anticipate the problems that could happen and put something in place to stop them from happening. So let's go back and go the worst case planning. Again, it's webinars. Again, we'll do worst case planning. So I'm going to just put in the various worst case scenarios and what's the antithesis? What's the way to solve it before they ever become real? So wrong topic area for the webinar. Well, we're going to do beta tests, we're going to do ask campaigns, we're going to do surveys to understand what the market need is and what the customers are. You, you see, that'll eliminate or at least reduce that risk. In the context of a webinar, what about a boring presentation? That is certainly a risk. Well, we're going to get a presentation coach. We're going to run tests again, beta tests and surveys. But I'm going to get someone to help out. If that was the case, technology Crashes. And I've had this happen in a number of situations. Well, what are your backup systems? Run, dry run. So you understand it. Ask, how do we deal with this? If all of a sudden the system goes down, what happens? In fact, we had a situation a while back. I was about to do a webinar the following morning, and all of a sudden the Internet went down. And the Internet service provider told me, well, I'm not sure when it's going to be up. Well, I got hundreds of people coming on a webinar. Well, I wasn't going to wait around to see if they got the stuff working. So I ended up driving to another place that night, spending the night in a place where I had guaranteed Internet and ran the webinar from there. It's just what you have to do. You've got to run some of these things and anticipate it in order to make it avoid the problems and learn before the mistakes are really mistakes. Marketing is ineffective or costly. Well, we're going to learn and use best practices. I'm going to see what other people are doing. I'm going to have a conversation with, with some of the top marketers. When I see someone hit it out of a park on a webinar, I'm going to ask, how do they do it? I'm going to get coaching in that process. Well, what about no one shows up. Can you imagine, you know, you're talking to an empty room and no one shows up on the webinar. Well, I'm going to put in an engagement sequence. And this is what we do with our webinars. In other words, from the time that they sign up for the webinar, there is an engagement sequence. We keep them in the game. We have a conversation with them to increase the likelihood that they're going to be there because they become invested in the outcome. And there's a whole host of different strategies to bring people on to a webinar. This isn't a, this isn't a presentation on webinars, but I'm using it just as an example. Delivery didn't land. In other words, we didn't get the outcome we want. Well, we're going to go through feedback loops and we're going to tweak it and we're going to try it again. We're going to, we're going to go back and survey the audience. What happened, what were the considerations, what were their thoughts and change and do it again. So we're going to use a feedback loop system to really Understand it. We're going to record all of them so we can go back and review it and unpack it and see what's happening. And then lastly, there's no continuing journey. In other words, we do the webinar and they never hear from us again. The wrong thing to do. Because what we're trying to do is create a relationship, like I'm trying to create a relationship with you. So what we're going to do is spend some time with what I call pipeline mapping, that we create a pipeline map for what the journey is for the people that are coming to the webinar and beyond the webinar in this, in this case. And you can do pipeline mapping for your customers, whether you're doing physical products, online products speaking, you really want to do the pipeline mapping so you know what the journey of your customers really is. So I use this as an example. This is not something that, this is not the one that we did when we did webinars. There's a couple things, those of you know me that I've had some nightmare stories on webinars that I've learned a lot from. But the point is this. We use worst case planning to find the solution before the problem ever becomes a problem. And by doing so, you, you raise the likelihood, you raise the probability of your success because you've eliminated or created some backstop.

That will stop the problem from becoming real. And so that's really the nature of it. The fact of the matter is that things are going to happen and we need to prepare for them. We need to handle them when they do happen. But if you're going into something that you haven't done before, especially a new business, a new project, a new product launch, a new use skill set, use the antithesis advantage use worst case planning to anticipate what could happen and then find the solutions before it ever happens. I remember back in the day When I was 18 to 22, I was doing stunt work and I remember.

My teacher, the one that taught me about stunts, he said to me, the day you believe that you got it all dialed in and you get up, maybe you're going to go do a jump off of a building and you walk up there like it's nothing, say, ah, I got this. I've done this millions of times. And I got this is the day you need to stop because you're not going to give it the presence and the attention it deserves. And I tell you that story because I think it's important for what you're doing and what I do and what all of us are doing in our lives and in our businesses, when we come and approach a situation as if we've done it a hundred times, a thousand times, a million times, we're not present to that moment. When I go out and speak, it's like the first time. I still get nervous, I still get anxious because I want to deliver and I want to serve the audience where they're at. I want to bring them to a higher level. And I think that that's important. When you get used to something, you start to become complacent. And so when you start to feel that you've done it a hundred times, a thousand times, a million times, and you are not preparing like you did before, that's the time to either get out of the game or shake yourself up and get back in the game. And why I'm saying that is this is not just a process to use for something new. It is also a process to use each and every day as you're walking through your business, your relationships and your life to sit back and say, what's the worst case? What's the solution? Solve it before it ever becomes real. I hope that you found this of value. Use the process, download the action guide, download the worksheets. It'll make sense to you that way. Start using it because you're going to find that your probability of success goes up and the actuality of your success goes up because you eliminate problems before they ever become real. To download the action guide, just go to melabraham.com session076 or just text me mylegacy1word to 38470. Make sure that I send you the download link and if you haven't done so already, subscribe. Stay with me. I've got a lot more coming your way about building your business, building your thought leadership, getting you to become.

Free and have peace of mind. And if you haven't done so already, I'm going to also ask you to do me a favor. Share this with a friend. Because this, especially this antithesis advantage, can be used in all aspects of life. So do me a favor. Share this with a friend. Leave some comments below, leave me some questions and I'll be more than happy to answer them. If you have questions, you can leave them below or you can go to askmelnow.com leave me your question there and we'll make sure that we get it on an upcoming episode of the Thought of the Entrepreneur Solution Show. Until then, may your vision be grand. Your journey epic and your legacy significant. See you soon. Cheers. Bye.

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 grand, your journey epic, and your legacy significant.

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