MBA2159 How Committed Are You?

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Hey oh welcome to the $1RMBA Show. Because your business needs you at your best. That's why we deliver daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started with my co founder back in 2014. And in today's episode, in today's lesson we're going to discuss the question how committed are you to your business, to entrepreneurship, to your goals? I've seen a lot of different entrepreneurs, a lot of different business builders building different products and services online, offline brick and mortar and the singular trait, the singular attribute that differentiates one that actually makes it has success, has longevity, has been around for 10 years, is growing, is scaling, is taking things to the next level constantly. That trait is commitment. But the problem is is that the definition of commitment or how committed you are differs from one person to the next. So in today's lesson I'm going to break down how committed you need to be to this journey to entrepreneurship to actually have success. Let's define what commitment really means. What kind of sacrifices does this actually entail? What are some of the things you probably need to expect and look out for? And how to know if you are truly committed to what you want out of your business. We get into all that and more in today's lesson. So let's get into it. Let's, let's get down to business.

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Like I mentioned earlier in the intro, commitment is a tough word because everybody has a different definition and therefore people don't really fully understand how committed they need to be in order to be successful in business. They now I want to first say off the bat that commitment is not the only factor in success. Some people can get successful in their business because of other factors. They're in a market that's hungry for what they have. They have incredible product market fit. The audience resonates strongly with what you offer. You're early, like there's not a lot of competition. You're way ahead of all the other competitors. Maybe you've been doing this for a while. The point here is that there are other things that will help you become successful. But those things alone or in isolation, can't help you if you are not committed. Let's get really practical. In my opinion, in my professional experience, commitment is about putting it as a top priority, making your business your priority in life. Now this rubs a lot of people the wrong way because they're like, what about my friends? What about my family? What about my health? What about my wellness? What about my hobbies? What about my enjoyment of life? Am I not supposed to do any of that? I didn't say that. What I'm saying is that in order for you to give yourself the best chance of success in business, you have to commit to making your business a top priority in your life. If I'm going to be totally honest with myself, when I was a teacher for 13 years, business was not my top priority. I wasn't committed to it. I was teaching full time. I was a school administrator. And on my weekends, in my evenings, I was working on my side hustles and I had a limited amount of success. I was capped at the success I could have because of that. Now, I know there's exceptions to this rule. I know there are people that side hustle and make millions, but these are the exceptions, right? I don't want to advise you to go down a path where you have a very small chance of success. I want to increase your chances of success so that There is a margin for error or things out of your control going sideways. So when I was teaching, the honest truth was I wasn't committed to business. I was committed to my, my profession. And how do I know where I'm committed? Well, it's very simple. Look at your calendar. Look at how you spend your days. How many hours are you spending in particular activities? When I made the leap to full time entrepreneurship, I was putting in early on a lot of hours. I was putting in 12, 13, 14 hours a day working on my business. Now, I don't advise that to be the standard all the time, but when I got started, I needed a lot of velocity. I needed to get things done. I needed to push myself to a level where I can sustain myself with the revenue I was making with my business. Because again, I didn't have a safety net. I didn't have a paycheck anymore. This is why this term, escape velocity is very prevalent in business. Because in order for you to leave the atmosphere in a spaceship and get out of the gravitational pull of the earth, it requires a lot of thrust, a lot of energy, a lot of commitment to get to escape velocity. And that's why I was fully, fully, fully committed. And in fact, my social life took a backseat. My fun, my entertainment took a backseat. The only thing I really worked on or committed to outside of my business was my health. I did the minimum I can do to exercise. I did three days of exercise, one hour a day. And everything else was building my business and growing it. Luckily, I was doing that with my significant other, Nicole. So I was spending a lot of time with her. But to be quite honest, we didn't spend a lot of time on holidays or vacations or even weekends. We didn't even have weekends off in the first couple years. And that's because my commitment was to the business. Now, as our businesses grew, as I have other responsibilities in life, I learned how to work smarter. I learned how to manage my time better. But still, till this day, you know, 10 solid years of full time entrepreneurship. My commitment is my business. I spend most of my time when my eyes are open, when I'm awake, working on my business. I will spend most of my days of the year working on my business. A lot of my decisions that I make in life are based on that commitment. And this is something that you need to think about. Who are the people you spend most time with? Are these people helping you achieve your goals in business? Are they helping you become the person you need to be to be successful? Are you Surrounding yourself with positive people, with smart people, with people that are ahead of you? Or are you the smartest person in the room all the time? That's not a place to be. You need to be the stupidest person in the room. Honestly, I love being in those types of situations because I'm always learning. So those decisions help show my commitment. It proves to myself that I'm committed how I spend my money. Am I spending it to improve myself, to become a better entrepreneur, a better leader? Am I spending it to have better experiences to influence me as a business builder? If you're spending your money the same way you were when you were in a job as an employee, there's something wrong here. Commitment is shown with action. Now, many of you might be thinking, omar, what if my business is not working out? Maybe I need to pivot, I need to change. Do I just grind it out and say I'm committed to it? No. Let me be very clear. When I say being committed, I mean being committed as a successful entrepreneur. That's always been my goal as an entrepreneur is I want to have success in business. So no matter what I do, it has to be working towards that goal. One business may not get me there. One business, one product, one service may not be helping me become successful as an entrepreneur. And I have to, because of my commitment, change things up and pivot and become something new. Change my business, change my offering. It's not the projects that matter so much as what the projects get me right? It's a means to an end. This is why I believe commitment is so, so important. It's because it helps us align our actions with our intentions. If you look at your past month and you say to yourself, I'm committed to my business, but then you actually look at what you did that month, how you spent it. Were you on social too much? Were you consuming more content than you were producing? Were you procrastinating on building that thing you need for your business or launching that new product or service? Part of fighting that procrastination is showing your commitment. And here's the thing. No one's going to force you to commit. No one's going to make you commit. You need to do it. You need to push yourself to that level of commitment. And that's what makes people successful, is that they're so committed. And regardless of their circumstances, they go ahead and do it. When they're tired, when they're sick, when they're not happy, when they're not in the mood, when things are not so great. When the weather's bad, they get up and they do the work. That's what differentiates people that succeed in anything in life versus those who who dabble and struggle and never make progress. USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day like superheroes and sidekicks or auto and home insurance. With usaa, you can bundle your auto and home and save up to 10%.

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Get a'@usaa.com bundle restrictions apply. Guys and gals. This was a tough lesson for me to deliver because it's tough love. It's hard for me to get real about this stuff, but it's essential. I've made a lot of mistakes in my life and a lot of that is down to the fact that I wasn't being honest with myself about my level of commitment. I had to recommit myself to what I'm trying to do, recommit myself to my goals. Remind myself, even if I have to put on a whiteboard or a post it note or something and tell myself, this is why I got to get up and do this thing. This is the goal. This is the end result. This is what I'm trying to get to. This is the destination. And the thing about commitment is that it comes within. You can't expect to be inspired and things to be easy. You have to dig deep. You have to tell yourself what you need to tell yourself to get the work done. And I'll leave you with this. Anybody that I've studied or read about or read their biography that has been successful at anything, that has been great at anything, have basically said the same thing about how they become successful, what it takes to become successful. Whether it's Michael Phelps saying, hey, my life is basically staring at a blue line in the water doing laps for four to five hours a day, or Kobe Bryant saying, I'm shooting the same shot over and over and over for hours upon hours a day, or Christian Bale, the famous actor who played Batman, said, most of my life as an actor is being ready, sitting in uncomfortable costume, waiting for them to call my name. This to me, what this all means is that most of the time the things that you have to do to show your commitment to be successful is not going to be so much fun. It's going to be boring. It's going to be tough. But that's why so few people are as great as these people, because they're willing to do that stuff. They're willing to go through the grind of monotonous actions and doing the boring stuff and doing the grind when they don't feel like it, when it's hard because they have internal commitment. Thanks so much for listening and I hope today's episode helped. If you liked it, Share Share the show with your friends on social media over at 1-000NBA NET. Go to 100 NBA NET. Share the link with your friends, let them know that they can follow and subscribe there. Also, while you're at it, leave us a rating and review on your favorite podcast app. We'd love to hear what you think of the show. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. When you get in the habit of being committed to things going all in, you're very selective about what you say yes to because your time is limited and in order for you to have any progr any area of your life, health, fitness, wealth, whatever it is, you got to stick to something. For example, in my health, I get asked to play in different basketball leagues all the time and I love playing basketball and I would love to play basketball every single night. But basketball is how I get my cardio exercise. For fun. I do it twice a week. There's a scheduled time I do it for, and I say no to all the other opportunities because I know I'm committed to going to the gym and working out. I want to do four days a week in the gym. It's also the way I consume a lot of books through audiobooks. I'm committed to that routine and if I just say yes to all opportunities that come my way to play basketball, then my routine of, you know, consuming great content, working out, getting consistent gains in the gym are threatened and I therefore won't get the results that I'm looking for or the experience that I want. So it's actually about saying no more than saying yes. Hope that gives you some perspective and helps you as you go on with your day. Today, I'll see you in tomorrow's episode Q and A Wednesday. Until then, take care.

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