Most Solopreneurs Are Solving the Wrong Problem

All right, we are live. Welcome to a pop-up edition of Creative On Purpose Live. We're going to talk about the speed trap and the virtues of an approach that I learned from Nick Peterson that was also unpacked in Dan Nicholson's book Rigging the Game, called clarity, certainty, and collapsing time. Gonna give, uh, the folks that are getting notified a chance to hop on before we get started for real. Welcome, John, great to have you here. If you're willing to just drop in the chat that you can see and hear me okay, and if you want to drop where you're tuning in from, always interested in the geographic distribution of the— oh, Nick Peterson is here! I just was giving you credit for the Clarity, Certainty, and Collapsing Time framework. Nick, great to have you here. For those that, uh, are watching in replay, Nick has released a bunch of books recently, but the Clarity, Certainty, and Collapsing Time he articulates in his book Coming Home, and it's, uh, the entire book is worth your time. Claire, great to have you here. Just saw Claire a few minutes ago on our community call. Hello, Amixentl. Uh, I hope I'm saying your name right. Great to have you here. So for those that are hopping on, just while we're killing time, giving people that were notified a chance to come on, if you don't mind just dropping where in the world you're tuning in from. I'm just kind of always a little bit nosy about the geographical distribution of folks that are hopping on. Hello, Brian. Brian and Claire are both, uh, Circle community members, Inner Circle community members. We were just on a call together. Hello, Assemblywoman Deborah. It's been a while. Great to see you here. Brian is tuning in from Atlanta. I didn't realize that when you were both on the call earlier, but Claire is also a Georgian, so I don't know how close to each other you all are. Maybe the next time I'm in, in Hall County, Georgia, we can have an in-person meetup amongst the Jordans. Cool, Claire. Yeah, my, my, um, brother-in-law and sister-in-law both live outside of Gainesville, so maybe the next time I'm in Georgia, we'll see if we can't hook up for a cup of coffee or lunch or something like that and have a, have a little righteous hang. Hello, Sue, great to have you here. All right, we have, uh, we have a nice handful of people here. We might have other people coming on. Savio, it's been a long time! Hello, Savio Clemente is here. So let's talk about the speed trap, which I think actually there's kind of two two faces, two sides to the, the way that we are kind of programmed as human beings to try to get what we want is we either participate in the undisciplined pursuit of more, or we just try to go faster. And these are both, again, part of our default biological evolutionary programming that's also enhanced by our conditioning. You know, in the marketplace, there's lots of folks that are selling tools and tactics that we can add to the systems that we have for accomplishing the things we want to accomplish or solving the problems we want to solve. So that's a more overcloser approach to getting what you want, which will actually get you further from what you want. And then there's how to get there faster, right? And the, the real danger here is that if we start with the last step, and the last step is always collapsing time to target, then if we have not first crafted a path that we are certain or confident that we will be be able to get there over a reasonable time horizon, and we have not also taken a step before certainty, clarifying exactly what it is that we're trying to accomplish and where we're starting from and what we're starting with. If we leap right to the collapsing time, if we leap right to speed, or just adding more to our plate, we are— if we add more, we're actually going to end up getting further away from what we and if we just go faster without establishing, uh, direction and certainty path, then we run the risk of actually going in the completely wrong direction, getting off track, going backwards, going around in circles, or heading right for and over the cliff. Collapsing time is always going to be the last step before we collapse time to target, whether this is a revenue goal that we want for our business, a client number that we're trying to, to hit, a bestseller badge on Substack, any— whatever that, that arbitrary thing is— before we start collapsing time to target to that goal, Do we have a path that we are sure is going to get us there? And is that path made up of the 2 or 3 essential things that need to happen in order to get us there? Have we eliminated all of the redundancies and all of the unnecessary things that are part of our current plan that are actually not returning any return on investment? We're not getting any real value or any— there's, there's no collapsed time target element in some of the things that we're doing. Have we eliminated all those things? And do we actually know what we're actually trying to accomplish and where we're starting and what we're starting with? So just to use revenue as a familiar example for most of us, If you're— if you've established some sort of revenue goal, is it based on reality, or is it just some arbitrary number that you've inherited from some guru or digital marketer that has promised you that you can make $10,000 a month or $20,000 a month or $100,000 a month? What do you actually need? What would a good enough vision of success look like? For most of us, we don't actually need to make $10,000 a month. And if we haven't yet made $1,000 a month, doing whatever somebody tells us is necessary to get to $10,000 a month is probably going to involve doing a lot of things that take us away from our real intention and out of our real integrity, the way that we want to show up and the way that we want to present and do the work that we want to do with the people that we actually care about. What's the real number? Like, the first step would be, before we start collapsing time to some arbitrary revenue target, start with clarity. What is my current revenue picture? What's my current financial picture. What am I currently— where are my current expenditures being invested? How am I investing the revenue that I currently have? Are those things that I am invested in getting me closer to the vision of the life that I want to be living? One of the easiest ways to start collapsing time to target when when you are trying to reach a revenue goal that will allow you to live a sufficiently successful vision of the life that you want to be living is stop spending money on shit that's not getting you anywhere near to what you actually want. You can do an audit of your current expenses, and if you put that— each expense up against the, the rule or barometer of does this get me closer to what I want? If it doesn't, if the answer to that question is not yes, is it something that you actually have to invest in? Is it an expense that is giving you any real return on the money that you're investing? One of the ways that, uh, when I went through my journey of blowing up a what looked like a successful business that was earning me $10,000 a month doing a lot of work I didn't like with a lot of people I didn't care about. One of the things that I did after I, I blew up that business was to took a look at where the money was actually going, and where a significant amount of money was going was into software and apps and programs that were teaching me to do something I never really wanted to do. To do, which was to be an expert digital marketer. So by simply stop spending money on things that only were being invested in to do things that I didn't really actually want to do, I was able to recoup a significant amount of money on an annual and monthly basis. And then when I looked at all of my discretionary spending, I was able to reduce that by a significant amount, not by going into austerity mode, but by just simply, you know, do I have to go to the coffee shop every single day and spend $20? Do I have to go out to dinner 3 times a week and spend $50 at a time? Do I have to go shopping every weekend and buy books that are just going to sit on my shelf? I was able to, you know, instead of saying no, I'm just going to only spend money on things that get me closer to what I want, I allowed myself trips to the coffee shop and trips to go out to eat and trips to go shopping and so forth. I just reduced it by half, and it was more than enough to make me feel like I was living a rich, fulfilled life without overindulging in things that weren't getting me any closer. So the first thing that you can do to get closer to what you actually want is stop doing all the shit that you don't like to do, don't want to do, don't need to do, and stop spending money on all the stuff that you don't like to do, want to do, or need to do. And, and when you recoup that money and probably a significant amount of time, that's money that will help you start living the life that you actually want to be living right now. And you can also invest some of that saved time and money into doing the 2 or 3 things that actually have to be done a little bit better, a little bit more effectively and efficiently. To get what you want. Clarity of direction. What is the specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound goal that I am trying to accomplish? What does a vision of the lifestyle I want look like on a weekly basis? What am I doing with my time? What am I spending my money on? Can— when I achieve that, will I recognize that it has been achieved? If it's some sort of vague, arbitrary goal, you'll never get there. It has to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and achieved in a reasonable time horizon. If you have that determined, then you have to go back to where am I starting and what am I starting with. What I found is more people have an idea of what they actually want their life to look like than they do about what their life actually looks like right now. We do a lot of— there's a lot of unconscious activity around what we do every day, what we do every week, and what we spend our time and money on day to day, week to week. And if you do an actual audit, an actual accounting of where is your current time and revenue being invested, you'll find that a lot of it is being invested in things that don't mean anything to you, that don't make you feel more fulfilled, and that aren't getting— don't have any way of helping you get closer to what you want. Once you have clarity of destination and starting point and current audit or accounting of resources, you actually have established a vector And now you can move from clarity of direction to certainty of achievement. What are the 2 or 3 things that need to go right in order to accomplish the thing you want to accomplish or solve the problem that you want to solve? If you are looking at this from the point of view of your business, in order to have a successful business You don't have to have any of the things that most online gurus and digital marketers tell you you have to have. You don't have to have an ideal customer avatar. You don't have to have a power offer. You don't have to establish a niche. You don't have to have a funnel or a content strategy or power it all with ads. Any business that has succeeded ever has really only had to get 3 things right enough. They have to have an offer that is irresistible enough, that is, they can make available to an audience that is eager for the change that, that offer will help them accomplish, the transformation that it will help them accomplish, the problem it will solve, or aspiration it will help them achieve. And you need a way of putting that offer in front of that audience. If you have those 3 things, you have everything you need to succeed in business. Most of the folks on this call, if you have some sort of business, you probably have an idea of what it is that you offer. You probably have an idea of who it's for. I think it's a great mechanism or great tool that I use for clarifying my, uh, my my offer, my audience, and my strategy is Seth Godin's marketing trifecta. This comes from the time I spent as a, as a coach in the marketing seminar, which was the basis of Seth's book This Is Marketing. Marketing trifecta is what change am I trying to make? The people that engage with my offer, my idea, my product or service will go from this experience to this experience? What is the experience, the change in experience that they will have if they engage with your offering? What change are you trying to make? Who am I trying to change? What is the kind of person that is best suited or well suited to buy your thing, work with you with your service, or enroll in your idea or cause? What are the values? What are the guiding principles? What are the boundaries and guardrails and non-negotiables? What are the talents and skills that you have that the people that share your values and need those talents to enhance their lives will engage with? And then the final is, what promise are you making? If someone enrolls and invests in the idea you have, the cause you're creating, or the product or service that you have, what is the promise that you can, that, that you can deliver? It's a little bit different than the change. I know it sounds like it might be the change. It's actually a different thing because most of the promises that can be kept can only be kept if the person that purchases your product or service or enrolls in your idea or cause actually does the work. If they are willing to do the work that turns learning into changed behavior, that turns, that, that becomes the thing by doing the thing. If you get some clarity about what your offer audience and strategy for putting the offer in front of the audience. Again, most people will have an idea of the offer, will have an idea of the audience. Then it's how are you going to attract the right people in your audience to become good fit prospects who become great leads who become perfect fit clients. And that's what the Be a Blessing Marketing that we talk about in the Creative on Purpose Substack and the community calls is all about. It's— it all happens through conversation. It all happens through a minimum number of channels with a minimum amount of, of content creation. It mostly happens in conversations, one-on-one conversations that may or may not begin in the comments of content, uh, or social media posts, but more likely going to happen through what you deliver through your permission marketing asset, which is your email list, where you are delivering anticipated personal and relevant messages to people that are eager to hear from you and eager to open your emails and eager to engage with the ideas that you're sharing, and using that as a means of starting a conversation. That will start off as just icebreaker conversations where you're getting to know each other, where you're helping them establish their direction, getting them— helping them get clarity about what they are trying to accomplish and where they are and what they're starting with. Where you then can use a process, uh, you know, some sort of diagnostic process to help them clarify and create a path that will provide them with some certainty and confidence that they can accomplish what they want to accomplish or solve what they want to solve. And then if you are able to provide clarity and certainty for the people that you seek to serve, why would they not want to pay you to collapse time to target? So the same process that you are using to clarify your own business systems, business processes, audiences, offers, marketing. It's going to be the same process that you're going to be using for the people that you seek to serve so that you can enroll, get the right people interested, enrolled, and invested in the change that you can help them make by making, prom— making and keeping promises for the right people, the people who share your values and need your talents to enhance their lives. So the big takeaway here is that we are always going to focus on our desire for and need for speed. We love to feel the wind in our hair. We love to feel the feeling of going fast. Productivity is a way that we do this. We do— we are— we engage in unnecessary productivity because it feels like we're accomplishing something, even though unnecessary productivity does not help us make progress to the things we want. To make progress, to achieve the things we want to achieve, or solve the things that we want to solve, requires very few things. But until we have established a clear vector, established a clear path, of only the essential components and eliminated all the redundancies and, and non-necessities, do we have the ability to start to collapse time to target. So don't start with collapse— collapsing time to target. That will come once we have some certainty of the path and have clarity of the direction. Start with clarity of direction. This is what I'm trying to accomplish. I can specifically name it. It is, uh, it is measurable. I can tell how close or far away I'm getting. It is achievable. It is something that I already have sufficient capacity to accomplish. It is relevant to the goal, the lifestyle goal that I'm trying to accomplish, and it can be accomplished over a reasonable timeline. What you have that vector established, then you can create certainty of path. That's a system reliability thing. What are the 2 or 3 things that need to go right? How do I eliminate all the things I don't need? And how do I raise the floor on the things that are not performing as effectively and efficiently as they can? Always raise the floor before you push the ceiling. And then collapsing time to target is System reliability and raising the floor is one of the ways that you're going to collapse time to target. One of the ways that you can collapse time to target— stop spending money on things that don't matter, stop spending time on things that aren't getting you closer to what you want. You will automatically improve your reliability and start collapsing time to target, and then you can work on experimenting with and trying the things that will help you get to where you want to be easier and faster, with greater ease and velocity. So that's my, uh, little riff rant. I'm happy to field any questions. I saw Kato jumped on. Great to have you here, Kato. My friend Ryan is here. We had a live not too long ago. Duncan the Sage, who is just— Duncan, I see your stuff in my feed all the time. You are rocking and rolling. You're doing Great. Yes, Duncan says learn how to build genuine relationships with your audience. Yeah, you should. I mean, it all comes down to genuine curiosity and consideration. If you genuinely care about and show up with curiosity and consideration for the people you want to serve, it's the easiest way I know to build the goodwill and the trust and the permission that's necessary to move people from being aware and paying attention to what you're doing to actually being interested in the things that you can, that you can do with and for them. Amixentl says, how would people buy from you, Scott Perry? It's a fair question. All of my, all of my offers around helping other people collapse time to target come through the, uh, Substack community. So you are not going to work with me unless you are first a member of the paid subscriber community as an Inner Circle or Circle member, founder, or monthly annual paid subscriber. Um, and that's because I only work with people that I want to work with, and I only work with people for whom I am the right choice or the best choice. And the only way to determine that is to have some familiarity and experience working with each other. So if you're a free subscriber, that's great. You can get all— everything I teach is available completely for free. I'd say 80 to 90% of my content is entirely free, um, and you can certainly learn everything you need to learn to apply the principles that I teach. And the strategies and the tactics and tools that I advocate. If you want that level of proximity and access that will give you some time to learn directly from me or to get my direct help in implementation, uh, and catalyzing your, um, your, your ability to collapse time to the target that you've, that established, then that comes— that begins with being a member of the Circle or Inner Circle community. And then if you want to work with me on a daily basis through my Voxer program, or compound the daily access in Voxer with one-on-one coaching weekly in person, there's opportunities to do that too. But Again, nothing happens until we, we get to know each other and also until I've actually helped you. If you, Omic Zintel, or anybody on this call, if you need some help clarifying exactly what it is that you're trying to accomplish and where you're starting from and what you're starting with and crafting a path that will get you there, there is a, uh, there's a free coaching by email program. I'll, I'll be happy to help you define your vector and your path completely for, for free. And if it makes sense and you want to continue, there's all sorts of options for getting my direct personal assistance and helping you collapse time to target through various levels of proximity and access to me. So the— you do not have to be a paid subscriber to take it that advantage of the Catalyst Exchange, which is just a brief email exchange that will help us define exactly what you're trying to accomplish or what you're trying to solve and the most efficient path to doing that. Amixentel says, it baffles my mind the limitations we put on ourselves. Yeah, I totally agree. I think that if we were to embrace our limitless potential and truly see what we are capable of, it would— it scares most of us into doing nothing. But the truth is, you can accomplish anything that you want to accomplish if you have clarity about who you are, what you're good at, where you belong. And if you The more clarity you have about that, the easier it is to set meaningful, uh, objectives and lifestyle goals and, and build businesses that help you fund and fit the life that you actually want to live. Uh, I don't know if he's still here, but Nick Peterson was here. Nick has been immensely helpful in helping me rebuild a business from the ground up that actually completely aligns with who I am, what I'm good at, where I belong, and building a business on my terms without, without compromising my values or guiding principles. So if you're not familiar with Nick, he has a, a great Substack, Nick Peterson from the Mountain, and the Guardian Academy and Man Bites Dog are all part of his family of publications, along with Graywolf. Graywolf is another publication. So check Nick out, check out what he's up to. I don't see any other questions or comments coming in. It's great to see so many familiar faces and a few new ones on this call. For those that, um, would like to learn more about this principle of clarity, certainty, and collapsing time, It's, uh, again, you can look at Nick's book Coming Home. Uh, if you're looking at it from a specifically financial perspective, Dan Nicholson's book Rigging the Game is a good one. Um, and I am writing about this at length in tomorrow's article. Uh, so you can subscribe to the Creative on Purpose Substack and it will get delivered to your inbox. First thing tomorrow morning, 6:38 Eastern time. And, uh, yeah, I hope that this was helpful, useful to folks that were here. And until I see you all again, be well, do good, have fun.