3 REASONS people FAIL AT BUSINESS...and how to REPROGRAM YOUR MIND..

What is up? In this video today, what I want to talk about are 3 reasons why your business isn't growing. None of these reasons are going to be based on skill. So I'm not going to talk about marketing, I'm not going to talk about HR, I'm not going to talk about like some, you know, lack of skill that you have that is preventing you from growing your business. Instead, what I want to talk about are really the habits and the beliefs that we have that prevent us from growing a business. And this is really top of mind for me because Alex and I just got back from an event and we had a lot of conversations with a lot of different people. And a lot of different dinners and a lot of side convos with people who are looking to grow their business. And maybe, you know, especially because he spoke at that event, they're asking us, you know, what do you see that I don't see? And so these are the 3 things that were really top of mind for me. And I say that because I've gone through them myself. And so the first one is that a lot of people focus on why their business is not growing rather than how to grow a business. Okay, so it's a nuance in there. They're focused on the past. And so this is something a lot of humans do, and they don't just do it in business, they do it in real life. So I'll just give you examples, right? A lot of people think that in order to correct a present-day behavior that they have that may not be serving them— maybe it's binge drinking, maybe it's, you know, yelling at your boyfriend every time he doesn't invite you somewhere, maybe it's whatever it is, right? They're like, I have to find the past event that caused this otherwise I cannot fix it now. And that's just not true. It's been proven, it's been studied. You don't actually need to know why the thing isn't working. You just need to focus on how to make it work now. So it's like you're not responsible, maybe in certain cases, for why it's not working. And you are to an extent, you are responsible to a degree, you are not responsible to a degree, right? That's just like most things in life. But what you are responsible for is figuring out how to fix it. And so what a lot of people do is they're, they're constantly questioning why their business isn't growing, why their business is so small, why they just can't grow a business. And I'm like, I know the reason why. It's because you're so fucking focused on why you can't do something rather than why could you do something. How do you grow a business? And so you're taking all that focus and you're putting it on your past. You're putting it on who you have been. You're putting it on what your business has been in the past. You're not thinking about what your future business would look like if it had the aspects of a business that it needs to grow. You're not looking at what kind of a CEO grows a business. Instead, you're just so focused on understanding why, why, why, why, and creating so much meaning behind something that maybe doesn't need that much meaning. Maybe you just need to focus on the solution. And so that's the first thing, is that people tend to overanalyze why something is occurring. Honestly, this really resonates with my personal life because I think for a very long time I studied a lot of psychology and a lot of behavior change, etc. And a lot of what I believed was that you had to understand why something happened in your life to understand how to fix your present-day behavior and your patterns. And this is something that I want to say 10 years ago my belief was really broken because as soon as I stopped focusing on why do I act this way, why am I anxious about this, why am I this way, why am I not good at this, and I started focusing on how do I get good at this, how do I overcome anxiety, and not focused on what caused it, I just took responsibility for the change. That is when my life changed, and that is when I was able to overcome all those things. And I don't care why they happened. I don't even care why I was or am the way I am. I just focus on how do I fix it now, right? How do I put things in my favor more than not now? And so I think you really need to do that with business rather than focusing on what is wrong and constantly focused on the past. The issue is you're thinking about the business. The issue is not the business half the time. So if you were to just change your thinking and to say, how do I grow a business, rather than why is my business not growing, and you ask yourself better questions, your business would grow. So that's the first thing. The second thing is that you continue to use the tool that has worked for you up until now, and you refuse to pick up another tool whether you know it or not. And so I'll give you an example. It's a conversation I had about a year ago, and I was talking to a CEO who is really, really smart and really successful. But he said, he's like, I understand why my business isn't growing. It's kind of hit a plateau. And I was like, why is that? And he said, well, I just continue to use the same tool. My tool is marketing. And so anytime a problem arises, I'm like, hit it with marketing. You know, sales problem, more marketing. Uh, HR problem, more marketing. Person I don't like, more marketing. He's like, I just hit it all with marketing. And he's like, and I know that's why I'm not growing. He's like, I need— because the other stuff makes me anxious, I avoid it, I'm not good at it. And so he continues to hit the same different problems with the same tool. So it's like if you are approaching a nail and you hit it with a hammer, but then you put a screw and you hit it with a hammer, but it actually needs a screwdriver. But you're like, well, I don't know how to use a screwdriver, so I'm just going to hit it with a hammer because I like hitting things with hammers because I'm used to hitting things with hammers. Because up until now, hitting things with hammers has got me where I am and it's led to a decent amount of success. And so I feel comfortable continuing to use a hammer. And that's what most people do with their business. They continue to hone in on that one skill that they have mastered rather than say, what is the new tool or the new skill that I need to have? And the reason that most people can't do that is because of the discomfort of letting go of that tool. If you put that hammer down and you have to pick up a new one, you're going to suck at it. You're not going to like it. It's going to be uncomfortable, but it's only going to be for a short amount of time because the reality is that most things that we even fear or panic about, right, that terrify us, within 30 to 60 days, we actually can end up liking because we tend to like most things that we overcome and that we gain mastery in. And so even if you despise something 30 days ago, 30 days later, you can actually really like it. And so I think we do ourselves a disservice when we continue to hit those problems with the same hammer in our business. And it prevents us from getting to the next level because we are not willing to feel uncomfortable, not willing to be vulnerable and pick up that new tool and look like an idiot all over again. Because that's where growth really comes from. It's being willing to look like an idiot in front of your staff, in front of your clients, in front of everybody. I'll give you an example, which was Alex and I, I want to say it was 3 and a half, 4 years ago, we wanted to put together a solution for working leads. And at that time, we had no idea that you can build software. We didn't know how to build software. And so we jerry-rigged this insane system together that we called Allen. And this was before we actually had a real piece of software, which is called Allen. And we said, we're going to, you know, jerry-rig this thing together because it is a solution for our clients. But we were nervous because we'd never done it before. And so we put this thing together and I want to say 200 clients bought it after a launch webinar to our warm audience. And we were like, that's amazing. This is great, etc., etc. And we were nervous because we'd like, oh my gosh, we've never launched anything like this. Like, it's like a It's a software, but it's not actually software because back then we didn't know how to build a software. Immediately I go in our Facebook group and I just see people slamming me and Alex. They're like, I can't believe the Hormozes put something like this out. This is a disgrace to Gym Launch. I'm disgusted. Worst money I've ever spent. And these were like customers who loved us. And I was like, holy shit. I was like, I feel like a piece of shit. And Alex and I were like, what do we do? We did two things. One, we apologized and admitted that we are, you know, fallible humans that make mistakes. And we said we made a mistake. We will refund anyone who wants it. We obviously did not test this enough and we don't know what we're doing. And we admitted it. And to my surprise, actually, almost all people accepted our apology. And a lot of them didn't even ask for a refund because I think they just felt bad for us because we looked like such idiots. And the second thing that happened was that we didn't give up. We didn't say, hey, I'm going to go back to the hammer, right? We just said, I'm using a screwdriver, but I don't think I have the training to use a screwdriver. And so who does have training on how to use a screwdriver? And let's find them and let's do that. And that's what we did in order to actually build a real software, which we actually sold about, uh, 2 months ago. And so we didn't give up. And I think that's the biggest thing, is that a lot of times we pick up that new tool, the reason we go back to the old one is because we think, well, I'm not even good at this new one. But you don't give yourself a chance because you have to be willing to fail in order to succeed. And so we all know that subconsciously, but I think a lot of times in business, you know, because the failure is so— we magnify our minds because we're like, oh, these customers hate me now, all these employees think I'm an idiot now. You just have to get used to it. You have to build a frustration tolerance to knowing that people view you that way. And the reality is that nobody who is willing to— is not willing to look imperfect in front of others is going to get anywhere in life. And if they do, they're probably going to crack later because they're trying so hard to look perfect, and that's not— that does not exist. And so that's the second piece, is you have to be willing to pick up the new tool. Now the third one is that you have to know what goal you're optimizing for. And this came up a lot because in Alex's talk that he actually gave at this event, he talked a lot about focus. And for us, you know, we built multiple businesses and then, you know, we've kind of taken a lot of complexity out of our lives recently and even sold one of those businesses or a couple of those businesses to just kind of simplify everything that we're doing. And a lot of people came up to us and said, you know, I think I'd be making more money if I had less businesses. I've got 6, I've got 7, I've got 8, I've got 3. The question that I ask most people is, I said, well, what's the goal? Because the advice that I'm going to give somebody who wants to make the most amount of money versus the person that wants to enjoy what they do every day versus the person that wants family work-life balance is all going to be different. And so I think a lot of times we actually tend to bang our heads against a wall that we're not hitting some arbitrary goal that is not actually our own. It's implanted in us from others and from society and from what we think we should do and all these shoulds and musts. That are not our own. And so, like, I should be at 8 figures, I should be at 9 figures, I should be able to make more money, I should be growing faster. Well, who the fuck knows? Like, where did those shoulds come from? They come from unrealistic expectations from society and from taking things at face value, and nothing is at face value. Anytime anyone tells me anything about their business and they don't talk about anything that's bad, I immediately do not believe them because that's not possible. Life is always 50/50. And so you can choose to ignore the bad, or you can embrace it. And so I think that you have to be able to take inventory and say, what am I comparing myself against and what do I really want for myself? Maybe— and this is a conversation I had with one entrepreneur who's really successful. He's like, I have, you know, 5 businesses. He's like, but you know what I realize in like talking to you and talking to Alex and thinking about it, he's like, I want to enjoy what I do. I love doing them all and I don't really care if I make more money. And so I was like, well, then there's no problem. Like, if you don't care if you make more money and you just want to enjoy what you do every day and you enjoy what you do every day, having 5 businesses, then have 5 businesses. There's nothing wrong with that. I think a lot of times we play this game in our mind, and I know Simon Sinek talks about the infinite game, right? And it's, you know, we always say, oh, am I— we compare ourselves and say I'm winning or I'm losing against this person, but you have no idea what that person's optimizing for. You have no idea what their goals are. You have no idea what they want in life. And so the same goes for business, is you have to ask yourself, what am I optimizing for? And if you are coaching people on business, you have to ask them what they're optimizing for, because what I do notice a lot of people do is they just tell you what they did and what worked for them and how to optimize for their results. But what you really want to do is ask yourself, what results do I want to optimize for? What kind of life do I want? And if you are a coach, you have to be able to say, what are they optimizing for? Rather than, what do I think they should do? Because maybe I wish I had done things that way. And so those are the 3 things that I tend to see and that I was really reminded of over the last few days tend to stop people from growing in business. It's overanalyzing and focusing on the past, not the present. Right? Thinking that you need to understand where the problem came from or why it happened or why you acted the way you did or whatever. You're a fallible human, right? That's why. Second is you have to be able to pick up that new tool and put the other down and not be afraid of the consequences and the vulnerability that comes along with it. And then lastly is you have to know what you're optimizing for and understand that what you are optimizing for may not be what somebody else is. If you deep down know what your goal is but you tend to optimize for what you believe your goal should be, you're constantly resisting yourself and you just create this internal fight essentially in your head, and that's just not— it's, it's not feasible for anybody. And so those are the 3 reasons that I tend to see why a business is not growing. If you find this content valuable and if you want to hear more about why businesses don't grow, or more so why they can grow and how they can grow on the next video, then go ahead and hit subscribe and I will see you on the next one.