How To Force Yourself To Start A Business

If you wanna start a business, but you still haven't, I'm gonna tell you why, plain and simple. And here it is. It's your excuses. That's it. That's the whole answer. But don't worry, I got your back. Despite your excuses, I'm gonna help you get started. But there's a phrase I want you to write down. I want you to remember this every single day, and that is you can have excuses or you can have results. You just can't have both. Today, I'm going to help you dismantle every single excuse that's holding you back. And I'm going to give you a way to make your first sale so you can start getting some momentum. Not in a month. I'm talking about this week. We're going to reframe what it means to force yourself so you don't feel like you need to force yourself again, because here's a confession I want to make upfront. I never had to force myself to start a business. Not once. And I'll explain why. And it has to do with the way you reframe this whole thing in your head. Let's go. Before anything else, there is an important question you need to ask yourself. By the way, this is the whole episode right here. Okay? If you get this, you have won. All right? One honest question. And here it is. You need to ask yourself, do you Do you actually want to start a business? Very important question you need to answer honestly. Do you actually want to start a business? Not does it sound interesting? Not would you like the outcome of a business? Do you actually want to do it? Do you actually want to go through the steps? This question is important because a lot of people want what a business will get them, but they don't want to actually go through building one. All right. If your answer is no, you don't want to start a business, not actually what you want to do, that's completely fine. It's okay. Be great at something else in your life. Find your fulfillment somewhere else, and you are going to be a happy camper. Okay? This episode ends here for you. If this— the answer to that question is no. Okay. But if the answer is yes, let's keep moving. So if you answered yes, yes, I actually want to start a business. The next question you need to ask is, what is actually stopping you? All right. You need to write it down. This is important. This is your life. Okay? Stop pretending that this is something that is not important to you or is insignificant. This is the trajectory of the rest of your waking days. Okay? You need to make sure that you take this seriously. So write down your answers on a piece of paper or in your phone. Okay? Now, We're going to answer this question very, very carefully. And we're gonna be very, very detailed with what's actually stopping us from starting our business. And this is when you're gonna start writing all the reasons why you're not there yet. Why haven't you started yet? Why haven't you made any kind of progress? Write it down, be honest. Now, everybody's gonna have a different list, but I'm gonna share with you the top 3 excuses that I have seen in my 20 years of entrepreneurship. I've been answering this question and helping people with this 4 decades. Okay. So here are the top 3. Excuse number 1, I don't have the time. Okay. What are you doing with your time right now? We all have 24 hours in the day. That's what's great about time. It's the ultimate equalizer. Warren Buffett has 24 hours in a day. You know, all the entrepreneurs you look up to, whether it's Jeff Bezos or Sarah Blakely or Oprah Winfrey, 24 hours in a day, they don't get extra time. Okay. I have 24 hours in a day. You have 24 hours in a day. Okay. Okay, so right now, how are you spending this time? How are you spending every hour of the day? What are you doing? Look at your calendar if you follow a calendar. If you don't, look at what you did yesterday. Walk through each hour. What were you doing? Were you watching TV? Were you working out in the gym? Whatever it was, were you at work? Were you doing the dishes? Were you going for a walk? Were you playing video games? Whatever it is, write it down. Okay. You gotta have to dissect your life so that you can actually change it. Okay. Once you've written down what you did, ask yourself the next question. Do you wanna keep doing those things more than you want to start a business? Told you we're gonna get honest. Okay. Do you wanna play video games more than you wanna start a business? Do you want to go out with friends or have drinks after work more than you wanna start a business? Do you wanna go to the movies? Nothing wrong with the movies, but do you want to go to the movies more than you want to start a business? You have to ask those questions because you have time. You just choose to spend that time in some other way. Now listen, I know that you have obligations. I had obligations when I was starting. I had a full-time job. I was an educator. You know, I had bills to pay. I had responsibilities, all that stuff. Okay. But if I was honest with myself, there was some downtime. There was some time after work. There was time on the weekends. There was time on holidays. That I was doing other things before I started a business. I wasn't doing business; I was doing something else. So if the answer is I rather do those other things than start a business, if that's the honest answer, then you don't want to start a business, right? This is the proof you don't want to start a business because if you want to start a business, you'd want it more than the other things. Okay, what you want is comfort. What you want is a bit of downtime, and that's fine. Just be honest. I'm not talking down on anybody that says this. I'm not saying that this is a bad thing. I'm just saying that you just need to recognize, have self. Self-awareness is one of the number one tools you can have as an entrepreneur. It's understanding what you can and cannot do, what you want and what you don't want, right? So if you don't want to do business over those things, just be honest so that you know where you stand. But if the answer is no, right, you just found your hours, right? If you say, no, I do want to start a business instead of the other things I wrote down, then those are the hours you need to use. Those are the things that you're going to take those hours from those things that you don't prefer to do over starting a business. They weren't missing. They were always there. Excuse number 2, I don't have the money. Okay. Do you actually need money to start? Ask yourself that question. And the answer is no. I've started all my businesses from the beginning of time over the last 20 years with no startup capital, right? With no outside funding, right? I might've used some of my savings over time. Maybe I used some of my initial revenue, but I started with nothing. It's If you have a laptop, and honestly, if you just have a phone, okay, you can start. And starting a business with $0 is totally possible. It's actually quite common now in 2026. And like I mentioned, every single one of my businesses started with $0. Money isn't the barrier, right? It's the most socially acceptable excuse in my experience is like, I don't have enough money, I can't afford it, right? But the honest truth is, is that you could sell something before you need to provide it. What do I mean by that? Like if I wanted to sell sell a pair of sneakers to somebody, I don't actually have the need to give them the sneakers until I get the money, right? So they can give me the money first and then I give them the sneakers. I find the sneakers, buy them from somewhere else and make a profit, right? By the way, this is one of the first businesses I had. I used to do arbitrage where I used to find rare Air Jordans for people, sell them for a profit to people that were looking for those Air Jordans in their size. Didn't need a single dollar to start. I just needed a little bit of time, a little bit of energy, and willing to ask for the sale. Excuse number 3, I don't know that it will work. I don't know if I will fail. I don't know if what I'm about to jump into is actually gonna be worth my time and money and effort. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. And here's the truth, nobody does. Nobody ever knows, ever. Not me, not anyone. So the real question is, are you willing to try and fail? Are you willing to try and fail? Is failure an option for you? If the answer is no, you don't really want to start a business because that's what entrepreneurship is all about. It's about trying, failing, trying, failing, trying. Oh, something here. Maybe I could figure out what's going on here. Why is this working? Oh, it's working a little bit. Oh, I failed again. Oh, I'll try again. Now it's working. Okay, great. That's what business looks like. Okay, you want a guarantee? It doesn't exist. Okay. The answer has to be, I'm willing to fail. If the answer is yes, I'm willing to fail, then you're going to be all right. All right. It's not a blocker. It's okay for you not to know. It's okay for you not to understand if this is going to succeed, right? If you have a bunch of ideas and you, and you don't know which one is going to work, try one. All right. One of the things I say all the time is that, how do you know if you like pineapple? Well, one day you just tried pineapple and now you know that you like it or you don't like it. Okay? Same thing with business. How do you know if your product or service is going to work? Well, you're going to try it out. You're going to see if somebody wants to buy it. If somebody wants to buy it, that's a good signal. If somebody doesn't want to buy it, not such a great signal, but keep trying, keep trying, keep trying. If 100 people don't want to buy it, then there's your answer. Let's try something else. I want you to notice something. All 3 excuses have something in common. The obstacle isn't time. It's not money. It's not uncertainty. What's stopping you is you. Okay? You are deciding that you don't have time. You are deciding that money is what you need to start a business. You are deciding that the uncertainty and that failure is too painful that I won't try and see if it works. Right? You are the person that's stopping yourself. And the thing is, I'm saying this out of experience. It took me a very long time to go into full-on, Full-time entrepreneurship. I side hustled for ten years. I started small businesses and failed and succeeded. But even when I never started my first business, I was a little bit scared. I was in a full-time job. I told myself I don't have time. I should be responsible and just work in my job. I didn't have any money. You know, I was a teacher. I wasn't making money, right? So you have to confront your excuses honestly. And usually when you confront them honestly, like we're doing today in this episode. Usually those excuses die. They die on the spot. And you have to face them. And you have to ask yourself the honest truth. And when that happens, one of two things happen. Either you go for it and you say, I've had it. That's it. I'm going to go ahead and start this business already. Or you decide, you know what? I got to stop playing with my emotions. I got to stop playing with my life. This is not something I actually want. I just like the idea of it. And I won't do it. Great. Now you can live your life without— not in agony. OK? But if you do want to start a business, let's keep moving. I want to help you get some momentum because momentum is one of the best things you can have as an entrepreneur because it makes you start feeling like a winner. It makes you feel like, hey, this is worth my time and energy. It starts giving you an ROI on all the investment that you're making, you know, all the effort. So how do you make a sale this week? Okay. Here is the actual mechanism to make this happen. It's not a plan. It's actually getting you a first sale. Okay. I'm not going to give you this elaborate plan that is complicated. Okay. This is actually very simple. I want you to take your business idea and dilute it into a smaller concept. Okay. This is like, I would say a trial business. It's not your dream business. Okay. It's a trial business. The whole point of this Let's say experiment is to make your first sale, is to make some money so you can start to feel what it's like to be a business owner. And this is very simple. Okay? Say, for example, you are going to build a business that serves moms that are busy and never have fun. They have kids, they have responsibilities, maybe they work as well, and they're just super, super burnt out. And you are thinking about a product or service that's going to help These women out. And this is the demographic you're serving. Instead of starting that business, you could start a small project that serves this audience. What's that small project? A dinner. A dinner party. OK? You can organize a dinner or an event for this audience and say, hey, we're going to have a fun dinner where we're going to go watch a movie, have some champagne, have a dinner together as friends, and everybody just pay $100 as a ticket. Okay? Super simple, right? And these people you probably already know in your family or your friends, in your network, okay? And this doesn't have to be a huge amount of people. It could be 5 people. It could be 4 people. It doesn't matter. The point is, is that they're going to pay you $100 for a ticket. Your job now is to provide this event to them for less than $100 each so that you can make a profit, okay? You could literally go to Groupon and find some deals. Right. Where you can get a dinner for $20 a person and get a movie ticket for $10. Now you pocketed $70 a ticket. Okay. The point I'm making here is that this is just a trial so that you could see what it's like to offer something to people that want this thing. Have some fun, have a night out that's going to give them a break and allow you to make a profit in the process. It also gives you that chance to practice the muscle to ask for the sale, to say, hey, I know that you're burnt out. I know you haven't had fun. You haven't had a night out for yourself. In ages. How about you treat yourself? It's only gonna cost you $100. See the sales copy I'm coming up with right now? This is your job, right? This is part of the exercise for you to get comfortable in showing the value of what you offer. You're gonna get to do a whole bunch of stuff like, you know, finding demand for your product, packaging the product, refining the offer, the wording, uh, creating a little one-page website even if you want to. You don't even have to do that. You could just send an email to these people. And collect payment, all this stuff, delivering the value, making sure that people are having fun that day. That is all part of business. And guess what? It's just all gonna happen in one day, right? There's gonna be some planning and organization beforehand, but within a week you're gonna make some money. Why does this work? It removes any excuse that anyone has. Okay? You don't need money to start it because you're collecting money upfront, right? You don't need time cuz it takes, you know, a couple emails to send out to people that you know. Right? It's very quick. You know, you have an hour, you could probably pull this off. And you're going in knowing that this is not high stakes. It's okay if it doesn't go perfectly. It's not the perfect idea. It's not the business, but it's a project. It's a chance for you to feel what it's like to earn some money. Okay? It lowers the stakes a little bit. It teaches you what it actually feels like to actually give value to somebody and get money in exchange. And I'm telling you right now, Once you do this project, once you make money outside of your paycheck, it becomes a drug. I remember the first moment I made money where I sold a pair of Jordans to somebody that wanted those pair of Jordans. I made $30 on that sale. It was the first time I made money outside my paycheck. I was like, I just made $30 without having to trade time for money, without doing my job, without having to clock in. That was an amazing feeling. Like, what else could I do? Can I make $60? Can I make $100? Can I make $300? The limits start to disappear, right? You start to realize there are no limits, that you could pretty much do anything. You could build any kind of business. You can make as much money as you want. I know that sounds a little grandiose right now, but you really start to have an identity shift. You start to realize, oh, I can make money outside of my paycheck. I can earn a living doing this business thing. Hey, I hope today's episode is giving you that tough love that you need, that little shove that you need. I want you to subscribe because we have an upcoming episode I don't want you to miss. It's called The Best Way to Learn Isn't Through Video. The best way to master something is actually not through video. I'm going to show you what to do instead. I know that sounds crazy because I'm a YouTuber and somebody who's published over 500 videos over my career. But if you want to really get deep into something, video is not the best way. And I'll show you what to do instead so that you can be great at whatever you want to do. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss it. The reason why I gave you that project of creating a dinner, creating an event of some sort around the people that you're about to serve is that not all commitments are smart commitments. You don't want to make a huge commitment, spend a bunch of money, spend a bunch of time, spend a bunch of effort into building something that nobody wants. You want to start learning about the people you're serving. You want to get to the point where you understand what people value and therefore you could charge for it. So in this example, people value a nice night out, having some fun, being around the people that they enjoy being around. Being around like-minded people, making some friends, right? You'll learn a lot through that experiment. Notice I didn't say you need a logo, you need a website. You don't need a website. I was talking about a one-page website. That's going overboard. You could just do this through email. You don't need inventory. You don't need a branding package, right? You don't need anything. You don't need even an LLC. You can operate as a sole proprietor. Once you have validated and made your first, you know, few hundred dollars, great. Then you can move on and start doing all the legwork. Don't fall into the commitment trap. What do I mean by that? A lot of people, they like to really say, you know what, I'm going to get serious. I'm going to be a business owner. And they spent months, even years building a product, a service, a website, a logo. They build out their entity, they get a bank account, no customers yet. They haven't validated a thing. And what I call this is expensive procrastination, right? They feel like they're doing something because they're spending time and money on it, but they actually have no idea if this is going to work or not. And I want you to lower the chances of failure for yourself by just testing things out with small little projects, with small little value propositions, with little sales that you can make in the beginning when you're still new at business. My rule is don't spend any money until you have the buyer who's about to pay for your product. To spend at least 50% of the cost of the product. Okay. So they at least have to give you 50% as a deposit so that you could use that money to be able to fulfill that product or service that you've promised to the customer. Okay. I don't want you to be out of pocket. I don't want you to feel like you're in a hole here. All right. Don't spend money until you make money. The people who fund the business before validating to see if it actually is something that people want, these are the people that actually end up going out of business because they spend so much money they can't recover from the investment that they made initially without validating it. One of the things that helps sometimes when you're getting started, even with this initial project with an event or a party, is to just make it public, to tell your friends and family on social media, to say, hey, I'm organizing this thing. This is my first stab at being an entrepreneur, as a business owner, as putting something together. You know, I want to offer something to the people that I want to serve. You know, just say it out loud. You know, and if you're uncomfortable, like shooting a video, you could just put it in text or put it, you know, make an image and then put the text over the image. You could just post it on social media so that people are aware of it. And now you feel accountable to the people that are in front of you, the people that are in your world. So if you don't actually go ahead and do that project and do that party, you're not only disappointing yourself, you're disappointing other people around you. Sometimes that social pressure can actually help you. A private goal. A thing that you keep to yourself is easy to kill. It's easy to kind of ignore because no one really knows about it. You're not going to disappoint anybody. Yeah, you might disappoint yourself, but you'll come up with some excuses of why you didn't do it. OK, so making it public can help you in a lot of ways. Next is something I want to share with you, an honest confession. I never had to force myself to start a business. Not once. OK, because from the very beginning, business was a game to me. It was fun. It was fun to see if this thing is going to work. Is it going to not? What am I going to learn from it? I didn't really feel like it was that big of a deal. I actually looked forward after work trying things, running experiments, seeing what happens, seeing what sells. Oh, that, that didn't do well. Oh, that's kind of funny. But let me try something else tomorrow. Let me give that another shot. And it helped tremendously to have this mentality, to have this experimental mentality. And this comes from this idea that You shouldn't really hold dearly the concept of failure. Failure is not a big deal, OK? You can't care so much that if you fail. Guess what? You get to try again. You get to try again and again and again. The beauty of business is that you only have to win once, right? You only have to have it right, get it right, and have a successful business once to change your life forever, right? So have at it. Just fail quickly as much as possible. You can fail, fail, fail, fail until you hit what works. I talked about this before. I love playing basketball. I play basketball all the time, pickup basketball, organized basketball in leagues. I don't like losing games. It sucks. I hate losing, right? Genuinely. But after an hour or so, it kind of fades off and I start thinking, okay, why did we lose? Oh man, I don't think we played defense well enough. I think they were better when it came to rebounding. Oh, I think that we didn't move the ball enough on offense. I start thinking what I could do better. Maybe I need to improve my free throw shooting. There was some moments where I missed some critical shots. The point here is, is that you could learn from the failure. And guess what? There's another game, right? There's another game next week, tomorrow, whatever it might be, where you get the chance to try again, right? I don't just quit basketball because I lost once, right? No, I love the game too much. I enjoy the process. And the same thing applies to business. You gotta love the game of business. You gotta love the challenge. You gotta love the experience of trying something and seeing if it works. You know, that whole process gets me hyped up even just talking about it because it allows you to create things out of thin air. Makes you feel like a genuine creator. And that's what really attracted me to entrepreneurship in the first place. I really admired these people. Like, who are these people that create things that didn't exist in the world all of a sudden? You know, like anything you think of, any kind of product or service, any kind of, you know, the bakery around the corner, like it didn't exist before. But then they rented out the shop. They started cooking some beautiful cookies and muffins and cakes. They started selling it, right? They made that happen outta thin air. And to me, that's like magic. And those are the people that actually change the world, that actually make the world a better place. And for me, I was like, I wanna be one of those people that creates things outta thin air and has fun and enjoys serving other people. So you have to see this as an experience, as a game, as something that you're not gonna always win at, right? Sometimes you're gonna lose, sometimes you're gonna fail, sometimes you're gonna, Fall on your face. It's going to be embarrassing. That's OK. Tomorrow it will come. The sun will rise and you will get another chance at it. And that's the beauty of business. It's something that you can do for a very long time, way longer than playing basketball, right? There's going to be a point where I just can't play basketball anymore. Physically, it's going to be tough. But, you know, when I'm 80, 90, I can still do business, which is so awesome about it. This is what's great about the game of business. So to recap today's episode, ask yourself honestly whether you actually want this. Because if you really want something, you will find a way to make it happen. Right? Interrogate your excuses like you are a detective and you're shining the light on those excuses and saying, where were you? No, you're gonna ask, does this really make sense? Do I really don't have the time? What am I spending my time on? What can I, you know, spend my time on instead of those things like starting a business? Right? Do I not actually need money to start a business? Do I actually have to just be okay with the fact that I could fail and have uncertainty and I will find out and I will try and I will experiment? These are things that you need to just come to terms with if you want to do this business thing in the first place. Okay? Make that first sale with that mini project this week, right? So simple. Create a dinner, create an event, create a night out. You know, I got to say, one of my favorite things to do in our business till today is run events. Because it's one of the easiest things to sell. People love having fun. We do a Christmas party for entrepreneurs, like I mentioned before. We've run ski holidays and retreats and masterminds. We've done workshops. And the thing I love about it is that everybody is so eager to buy a ticket because it's just a good idea. People like spending a good time with people that they enjoy spending time with. So this is a great project to start with. Give yourself a chance to win, right? Get paid. Even if it's just a bit of money with that first project. And remember, don't spend a dollar until you have a buyer, somebody that's willing to pay. Okay. And if you want to make it public so that it stops you from backing out, stops you from feeling accountable, create some social accountability for yourself. And then lastly, find the game inside you. Find the enjoyment of being an entrepreneur, of being on this journey on this quest of building a business. Because that's what's going to make your journey sustainable, is that you actually enjoy getting up and going for the challenge and trying it out. Right? I have found that anything that you do consistently, like I'm talking about not for like one week, I'm talking about for years, like anything you've done for years, like brush your teeth, right? Like have breakfast every day. There's something that you enjoy about that. There's something that you get out of that, whether it's a refreshing feeling in your mouth when you brush your teeth or The tasty treats or the tasty breakfast you're having that gives you energy or whatever it might be, or that first cup of coffee. You keep doing it because there's something you're getting out of it. That's what's gonna keep you going in business if you're getting something out of it, if you're enjoying it, if you're finding fulfillment through it. Find the joy. Gamify it for yourself so that you do enjoy it. And lastly, I wanna leave you with this. You've had the excuses for years. How has it worked out for you? Probably not where you want to be, right? Try what I'm asking you to try, okay? Give what I'm saying a try, right? You've tried your way for a bit, right? You're getting the results you have now. If you're happy with the results, great. But if you want different results, you got to do something different, okay? So try what I'm suggesting in today's episode. See how that goes for you. And feel free to email me at any time. You know, you could join our newsletter over at website 100mba.net. You'll get my emails. I reply to all my emails. You could just reply to any email and let me know how it's going. All right, so get started already. I hope today's tough love was helpful, but most of all, I hope that you have something to think about, about if this is something important to you. Businesses only start when they're a must, right? You only start a business because you have to do it. Like, I gotta make this happen. So make it a must for yourself. If you want to continue learning, We have a great episode we recently published called How to Validate Your Business Right Now This Weekend. Okay? How do you make sure that the business idea that you're working on is actually going to fly or people actually want what you want to sell? Okay? That's a great episode to check out on whatever platform you're on, whether it's Apple or Spotify or YouTube or whatever it might be. Just scroll up. You'll find it. It's called How to Validate Your Business Idea This Weekend. Thanks so much for tuning in and being a part of the $100 MBA Show. I'll check you in the next one.