Scott Duffy Talking About What You Need To Know To Start A Business In Uncertain Times

Good morning, everybody. This is Scott Duffy. And welcome to what NOW with Scott Duffy, presented by SAP Concur. I hope you guys are having an amazing day, an amazing morning today, and I am so happy that you're joining us again. This is what NOW with Scott Duffy, presented by SAP. Concur. And if you're just joining us on the live stream, on Facebook, on YouTube, on where else are we? On Periscope or through the Connect network, Apple, Roku tv, Dash Radio? I want to welcome you. And if this is the first time you're here or you're just coming back, please do me a favor. Write your name down in the stream, say hello. Good morning, Brian Hardy, good to see you. Write down your name, the industry you're in, maybe something that you're having trouble with or a question you have, something related to your business. And I'll do everything that I can to shape today's show around you. And we have a lot to talk about today. This, this has been one of the craziest, the craziest weeks. Oh, my goodness. I'm down in Newport beach today. So I left Los Angeles. We were, Sita and I were like right in the heart of the riots and where everything was taking place there in Los Angeles the last few days. And, and so I actually left, I left a night before last because I could not get anything done. And Sita, she came down last night and I'm going to share, I'll share more about what's going on today and kind of our experience. But again, I want to thank all of you for joining. We have two more minutes before we go live on the air and so I'm going to let this propagate for just a sec. But again, if you are joining for the first time, please write down your name if you're an old timer. So say hello and I will do everything I can to shape this show around you. Again. This is what NOW with Scott Duffy, presented by SAP Concur. And we got just a little bit left to go here. And here we go.

Good morning. My name is Scott Duffy and this is what NOW with Scott Duffy, presented by SAP Concur. I want to welcome you from wherever you're listening. You can tune in each day at 10am Pacific Time to watch the live broadcast on YouTube or Facebook. You can download the podcast or listen throughout the day on Dash Radio. This show, it's for entrepreneurs, it's for small businesses and those thinking about starting their own company. It's for people affected by this economy, maybe they lost Their business, their job, they were furloughed or they saw all their consulting contracts disappear or canceled. It's for people who are asking themselves, what do I do now? And how do I come out of this period even stronger Now? Look, our focus for today's show is on this. What to do when you don't know what to do? What to do when you don't know what to do. And this came out of just like a conversation I was having with myself last night. What to do when you don't know what to do? What steps do you take if you're feeling like the ground is moving under your feet? What steps do you take if you're feeling like youe lost. Now, our special guest today. I mentioned yesterday we have a new show format. That show format is on hold because of everything going on with the protests and the riots and things like that. All that is on hold until next Monday or as soon as all of this stuff starts to settle down because we've had a lot of guests that were scheduled for this week that are affected and weren't able to make it with us. So we'll kick off the new show format next week. And again, part of that show format is I'll be having a live guest every single day. And we're all also going to be doing real time masterminding and mentoring with our listeners and our viewers. And so what that means is if you have a business or you don't have a business, you're thinking about creating a business or maybe you were recently laid off and you're trying to figure out what to do. What we're going to do, me and my guest is we're going to put you in, we call the hot seat. And it's not that it's that hot, but what it is is an opportunity for us to work with you one on one in real time and hopeful find, like at least one big idea, one nugget that you can follow up on, you can act on right away to help you to get closer to what it is that you want to help you to get there further, faster and with far less capital than you ever imagined. And so it's something that I've really wanted to do and I'm really excited to bring that to you next week. So I cannot believe it. It's been 12 weeks tomorrow. So 12 weeks, really, since our whole model of the world shifted under our feet. It's crazy when you think about it, 12 weeks, which feels to me like 12 years. So it was March 11th on March 11th, Rudy Gobert from the Utah Jazz was diagnosed with COVID So he tested positive for Covid. Couple hours later, the NBA suspended the season. Later that night, Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson, they tested for Covid. March 12th. The following day, which was a Thursday, like tomorrow, March 12th was the day that the market crashed in our country.

Excuse me, in our country.

We sheltered at home.

One second. I ate a couple of peanuts right before we came on.

And they seem to be caught in my throat.

So on March 12, it was the market crash. And as a country, soon after, we sheltered at home. And for weeks we did this because our goal and really the meaning behind what we were doing was to slow the spread. Now, to date, the US has 1.8 million cases of COVID 19 and 106,000 deaths. Now, as a result of all of us staying at home and shutting things down, this country went into recession. Unemployment levels hit rates greater than than the Great Depression. And it's fast, it's crazy how fast things changed. And then what I saw about after that was that everyone started to scramble and they started to scramble to try and get access to some of the benefits that the government was putting out for all of us. So they were scrambling for ways to get access to PPP funds or EIDL funds or to unemployment. Money came out late.

Or it didn't come out at all. For example, as it relates to unemployment right now in the United States, over one third of the unemployment claims that are supposed to be paid and that have been approved have not been paid and they're late. And by the way, this is one of the reasons that you see new, you see the unemployment, new claims falling is because people believe that even if they get approved, even if they file, they're not going to see anything. And so that was something that we saw happening. And you know what? It just, it all felt so random. I probably helped 50 people to get money, and some people got lots of money. Some people got over a million dollars from these programs that I worked with. And, and, but the crazy thing was it all seems so random who got money and how much they got. There was like no rhyme or reason to it. But we still, we rallied as a country behind Stay at Home because it had meaning. And I believe that's like, we're willing to do anything as long as it means something, something that is a positive thing. And so we rallied. And while we were rallying and things were shutting down, air traffic in the United States drop across the country. Louisiana reported 55% unemployment. Over 50% of small businesses said they'd be forced to shut down, which represents 40% of employment across the country. And the pressure started mounting on all of us business owners. They're fighting to get back to work, you know, and when you combine all of that Covid pressure with 40 million people unemployed, businesses being forced to shut down, record bankruptcies. It's just like we were building this, the crazy, crazy intense powder keg. And then George Floyd, one of the most disgusting things that many of us have ever seen. And it's not just the fact that he was killed or the way he was killed. It's not just the fact that officers just stood there and did nothing, or sat there or kneeled on him and did nothing. It's not just the fact that there's 70 officers protecting his home. But it's also the whole, you know, the matter was handled by the Minneapolis mayor and police. And, you know, this is a time when leadership would normally need to step up. And for us it really didn't. And so then came the protests. And can you believe, by the way, all of this has happened in 90 days. I mean, holy cow, this is like a lifetime's worth of stuff. It's all happened in 90 days. Then came the protests. Now we are right in the middle in Los. So I live in two places. I live in la, I live in Newport, my kids are in Newport.

And so that's why I'm here. But all my work is in la, all the media stuff. So sits and I, we live right next to the Fairfax, right adjacent to Hollywood Boulevard. So we have literally been in the middle of all this crazy stuff for the last week. And it's been equally, for me, heartbreaking and inspiring because there are so many people that are so well intentioned and these marches have become more peaceful and that's really awesome. At the same time, we've seen literally hundreds of businesses that had been broken into, burned out, shut down. These amazing business owners that are having to go through this experience that's been really hard to watch. And two days ago it just got too intense, you know, for me, it just got too intense. I could not focus on anything because in addition to all of these rallies that have been around us, we're about a mile and a half from the main police station in the area. So it is a non stop drumbeat of, you know, sirens and this and that and just, it's been nuts. So I came down here, actually, Sita came down last night, but, you know, we thought we Got away from it for a couple days at least as it relates to our ability to work. That was it. We just wanted to be able during the day to get some work done because everything's so distracting outside. So this morning we go to get our coffee at Starbucks, which is literally right next door. I get out of my place, I go right next door, Starbucks. And guess what? They were boarding it up. And I said, you're boarding it up? What's going on? So there's four protests that are scheduled today. They're all in Newport beach. And it's literally in front of me, behind me, to my left and to my right. So it's going to be kind of a crazy day, I think. But with all that said, you know, I just. I love to see the incredible. I encourage you to, to do the work and look for the incredible and the inspiring stories that are coming out. All of this, people coming together, changes, breakthroughs that are going to be made. I know today, this afternoon, I think it's at 1 o' clock Pacific. There's going to be a big announcement from the people investigating the police with new charges. So I think that maybe that may. May also help to restore some faith and create some calm. So anyway, that's a lot about kind of what has happened from my perspective over the last 90 days. Again, tomorrow marks 12 weeks that we've been in this whole Covid crisis. And it's been crazy when you look back for all of us now, where does this leave me? So this leaves me. And maybe you guys feel the same way. This leaves me today, totally exhausted. I have to tell you the truth, it has left me feeling totally exhausted. It's left me feeling low on. On fuel over the last few days. It's left me feeling really far behind. For example, after the COVID event, one of the things that we're sending out to people who registered thousands of people is a virtual gift bag. It is. We've had a bunch of our speakers, contributed amazing free downloads, books, online courses, university things, all kinds of stuff for free for you. We'd hoped to get that out over the past few days, but with everything else going on that just lagged. That is going out today. And I've also. I felt a little bit lost the last few days. I felt really confused. Like, do I march? Do I help my friends board up? I mean, this morning before I did the show, I was seriously considering canceling because the first thing that's happening here today is at noon. It's right down the street. And when I go down my street here, PCH in Corona del Mar. My friends are boarding up their places and so I was going to go help them out, which I will after the show. So, you know, it's kind of left me confused. And also, you know, it's like, what do you focus on and how do you stay focused? So I know this isn't the way I normally start these shows, but, you know, my whole thing is I just want to share with you what's going on in my life because maybe you guys are experiencing something similar. Maybe we can learn together how we get through this stuff stronger. So the question is, when you wake up in the morning and you don't know what to do, what do you do? What do you do when you don't know what to do? And I really think there's three things, and the first is this. Number one is you got to be the change that you want to see. I was talking to a Hollywood agent about three weeks ago. We were talking about Dwayne Johnson. So this is a person at CAA Creative Artists, the number one agency in the United States. And they called me about doing a gig. And.

It was interesting because we were talking about the Rock Dwayne Johnson. Dwayne Johnson is now the highest paid actor in the world. In the world. And the reason he came up is because I had somebody years ago, one of the courses that I was teaching, say to me, you know, I look at a guy like Dwayne Johnson and what I think is, if I had his money, then I would get in the gym and I would spend the time to work out and I would build my body up that way and then I would, I would do it. So if somebody invests in me, if I get the part, if I whatever, that's. Then I'll make all that happen. And I just said, look. And this is what me and the agent were talking about. The reason that Dwayne Johnson is Dwayne Johnson isn't because he waited for the paycheck to come. If you know Dwayne Johnson's story, this is the guy that was sleeping in his car. This is the guy who figured out how, while he was sleeping in his car, to do a push up, to do a pull up, to work himself out, to do whatever it took, no matter what was happening, in order to build himself into the person that he wanted to be. And if he built himself into the person that he wanted to be, that's when somebody else would notice. And that's when somebody would say, I want to give you the role, I want to give you the job. I want to give you the money and invest in your company. And so right now, it is more important because it is really easy during times like this for all of us to get down, to get depressed, to get unfocused, to lose our way, to not know what to do.

Now is the time that you have to double down on doing the steps required in order for you to achieve your vision. And again, I think that the Dwayne Johnson example is an amazing example of that. The other thing that we have to do is got to learn more. And I want to share with you a story. Excuse me. There's going to be all kinds of caveats to this story, but it is one of the best stories I've ever heard about learning. And I learned this story after working for Tony Robbins. It's a story about Tony Robbins and Andre Agassi. So, again, caveats all over the place. This is a person that I've known for years, a person that worked with Robbins, a person that was really close to the whole thing when I was there. And here is the story. But again, lots of caveats. If any of it is a little bit like not square in the corners, you'll get the point. So years ago, Andre Agassi was the number one tennis player in the world. So do you guys remember Andre Agassi? Like, Agassi was amazing. I think that he went through a period, he went through a streak where he did not lose a single match for three years. The guy could not lose. And then all of a sudden, he lost. He not only lost one match, he lost another. He lost another, he lost another. He went from the number one player in the world to top 10. He went from top 10 to top 20. He went from top 20 to top 30 to top 50. And it happened like that. And the way the story was told to me is he ended up in a bar in Vegas where he lives, and somebody came up to him and said, hey, Andre. He said, what you need to do is you need to call this guy, Tony Robbins. Tony Robbins can help you to get yourself back on track. And Andre Agassi said, well, do you know Tony Robbins? And the person said, you know, no, I don't, but you're famous. You can go find him, right?

So Agassi ended up finding him, and at this point, he continued to drop. He could not win. And so he went to Tony and he said, can you help him? Tony said, yes. He said, here's what I'll do. I'll give you one hour of my time. One hour of my time. What you need to do is deposit $150,000 into my account right now. And he was like, are you crazy? $150,000 for one hour? Why would I do that? No way. And so he didn't do the gig, and he kept losing until eventually, a few months later, he fell out of the top 100. And what did he do? He ended up calling Robbins, and he said, this is the way the story was told to me. He called Robbins and he said, okay, I'm ready to do it. I'm gonna put $150,000 into your account today. All I need, all I want is that one hour. If you say you can really. You believe you can really help. And he said, no, no, no, no. So I said, no, that's not the way it works. He said, now it's $250,000. $250,000. I need that deposited right into my account, and then I'll give you one hour of my time. Is it. Fine, I'll do it. So he puts the money into the account, and he says, okay, I'm ready. Can we talk tomorrow? What time do you have tomorrow? I need get my one hour. And again, the way it was told to me, Tony said, no, no, no. He said, you don't get how this works. He said, you get one hour of my time in six months. In six months. Holy cow. So what'd he do? So Andre Agassi waited for those six months to get that one hour, and then they sat down to meet. Now, what Agassi didn't know at the time, what he didn't know at the time was that Robbins had created two teams, and he had written down. I forget how many pages. Somebody told me a certain number of pages of questions. And the two teams had two separate tasks. One team's task was to take. It was to go, and it was to meet with every single person that Agassiz spent any time with when he was number one in the world, from the person that he ate with to the person that was his coach to his trainer, to the person that, you know, sold him a car. I don't know every single person that touched Andre Agassi at the time. The second group of people were responsible for something different. Their job was to travel around the world and talk to every single person they could find that was number one at tennis. Now, it didn't matter what level they were at. They could be somebody in grade school, they could Be somebody in college, they could be a professional player. They could be on an Olympic team. It didn't matter. Anybody in the world that was number one at tennis. And they asked the same questions. So here's what happens. The two get together six months later for their one hour. And what I was told is that Robin said, I don't. You don't need an hour on my time. You bought it. But all you need is five minutes. And what he did is he had two sheets of paper and he slipped them both over to Andre Agassi. And he said, on this piece of paper, this is what you did with absolute dedication and total precision. This is what you did when you were number one in the world. He said, the problem is, everybody over here with this piece of paper, they had to learn how to beat you. They had to learn how to beat number one. And so what they did is develop different patterns, different habits, different strategies in order to beat this piece of paper. And those patterns are right here. They all. This is the thing that everyone who's number one does today. He said, all you have to do is take this sheet of paper, do these things for the next six months, and you'll become number one in the world again. Guess what? He did it, and he was number one in three months.

And so what to do when we don't know what to do, it's to keep learning. It is to really understand that sometimes the model of what we did that made us who we are is broken. That other people have had to compete against us in order to capture more market share, try and take our leadership position in the space. And it is our job, it's our responsibility to. To stay on top of what's happening now and what's happening next. And by the way, that is the whole reason I've named this show what Now. That is the whole reason that we're about to announce our what Now? Academy, which is being built right now. It will be the largest training and certification program online for entrepreneurs in the world. And the whole point is to be incredibly intentional about. Intentional about knowing what. What is working now? What do I need to do? What are the steps that I need to take in order to be the best I can today in this market. So, again, number one is you gotta be the change that you want to see. If you are the rock, right? If you're the rock, you're not waiting. The number one paid actor in the entire world today, highest paid. You're not waiting to get the big part to then go to the Gym to get in shape. What you're doing when you're living in your car is you're doing everything you can to find a place to do a pushup. That's number one. So when the time is right, when luck meets opportunity and you get that break, you're ready, you are showing up. That's number one. Number two is you got to constantly be on top of what now. What is working now in today's market. And I gave you the Tony Robbins, Andre Agassi example, two sheets of paper. Here's what people did. Here's what you did when you were number one. Here's what the rest of the market did in order to beat you. To beat number one, do these things with the same dedication and consistency, and you will be number one in the world. And number three, you got to do one thing every single day to take care of yourself. I tell the story all the time. You know, being at Richard Branson's home on Necker island, leaving, going to the airport, two CEOs. Right next to me. Over here, the CEO of Virgin Atlantic. 20 years in the industry, an icon in commercial aviation. Over here, the CEO of Virgin America, David Kush. So what happens? I run over to Richard from Atlantic, and I say, before he leaves, Richard, the market. It's 2008. Everything's crashing around me. I want to be great as an entrepreneur, CEO. What is the number one thing that I have to do? The most important part of my job today? I thought he'd say something like leadership, communication. I don't know. Something like that. He looked at me and he said, exercise. And I said, exercise. I don't under. Like, I don't get that. I'm surprised you'd say exercise. He said, I'm disappointed. You're surprised. Walk till I never talk to him again. True story. Then over here, David Kush. David and I get on a different plane to head to America. We're sitting next to each other. We're an hour, a couple hours in. I look over at David. I said, hey, I just talked to. To our guy over here from Atlantic. I asked him, what's the most important part of your job right now? To be a great leader? And he said, well, that's easy. Exercise. I was like, what? Two smart people had no chance to talk to each other about this? But what I learned is this. What I learned is there is a common thread amongst people that truly crush it in our culture. That truly crush it. When times are tough, you got to be the toughest person in the room. If you don't exercise and take care of yourself, there's no way that you can be. It's as easy because, you know, it is so easy to go negative right now. It is so easy. It is so easy to watch what's going on in tv or in our case, listen to what's going on outside or walk out the door and go to a really negative place. It is really easy to go, oh, shit, I just lost my company, or, oh, shit, I just became unemployed, or, oh, shit, I just got furloughed. And start asking yourself a bunch of disempowering questions that put you into a cycle that makes you depressed and unhappy. And you get in a place where you become totally unproductive. And I'm not pointing fingers because I've been there myself. I mean, I got to fight and battle all this stuff every single day also, right? We are all going through this stuff together. So I don't care what it is. If you take a look at people like Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, some of the greatest leaders of our time, there's one thing that they all have in common. You know what it is? The number one thing they all have in common is they were walkers. It's true, they were walkers. These are guys that walked. They didn't necessarily go and train for the marathon. They didn't go and spend hours in the gym. But what they did is they understood that motion creates emotion. You change the way you move, you change the way you feel. You change the way you feel. You change the way you behave. You change the way you behave. You change the results that you get in your life and in your business. And so they would move and they would walk, and the walk was how they let off steam. I need one thing a day. That's all I need. So I need one thing a day physically, that you're going to do for yourself. Again, it could be a walk. For me, it's going to be a walk today. And I need one thing that you're going to do to eat right. Whether it's. You get yourself into a pattern. Look, here's my green juice. I'm on my second today. Four of these makes a gallon. So whether there's, you know, you decide to drink one thing of water a day or you decide to cut out the booze, or you decide one thing that is going to chemically change the way you feel, because how you feel determines how you behave. And there's never been a more important time for us to give ourselves every single possible advantage that we can, every single possible advantage that we can to get through this time. Because it's frickin hard. It is hard. The ground keeps. Seems like it keeps moving under our feet. And the summer's not going to get any easier. Unemployment will rise, more businesses will go out of business, more bankruptcies than any time in history. And then we're going to go into the fall and that's a whole other slew of issues. So what we need to do is take care of ourselves, put ourselves in the best possible position in order to, to think clearly and make really smart decisions. To think clearly so we can take action. Because look, if you don't know what to do, when you don't know what to do, the answer is simple. Just keep moving. Keep moving forward. Keep moving. Action, Action. Action is the root of everything. And the actions that you need to take again are, number one, be the change that you want to see. Number two, continue to learn or what now, what is working now. Number three, do one thing to take care of yourself every day. Now, before we wrap, it's going to be an early show. Like I mentioned earlier. We're going to go outside. We're going to help some of our friends board up their, their places here before the March starts at 12. I just would love to say hello to a few people. Let me see if I can make this work. I think that I can. There we go.

There he is. Brian Hardy, good to see you this morning. Thank you so much for joining. And this is another Facebook user saying hello, Arthur, thank you so much for joining today. I really appreciate you and it's great to see you. Patrick Carney, it was awesome to be a part of your group's mastermind yesterday. What a great group of people and thank you so much for, for stopping by today. It was wonderful to see and wonderful to see yesterday as well. We have a lot of Facebook users here. Let's see. And YouTube. Amy. Amy Scruggs. Thank you. I hope I pronounced that right. Thank you so much for joining today and good luck to you today. Aaron Garcia, you are the man. Love to see you here today. Thank you so much. Steve Mellon, my guy, Steve, it's so good to see you today. I want to thank all of you guys for joining today and just tell you how much I love you. And we will be back throughout the remainder of the week starting on Monday, provided all the protests calm down, we will start the new format for this show again. We're going to have a guest on every day and we're going to bring people up from our community and we're going to talk in real time about their business. We call it masterminding or group mentoring. And if you want to be a part, if you want us to feature your business in one of these sessions, shoot me a dm. Just let me know that you like to be a part, and somebody from our team will contact you until we talk again tomorrow. You guys have an amazing day. Stay safe, and I look forward to hearing from you. Bye. Bye.