How To Progress Way Faster Than Anyone Else

If you feel like you're not making

progress, this might be why. In my

earlier part of my career, I read a ton

of self-help books, everything I get my

hands on. But I realized that my life

didn't change. And so this video is

about why that might be the case. And

more importantly, what you can do about

it. If you think about, you know

climbing a mountain, a lot of people

think that there's like what is the

perfect path up the mountain. But in my

experience, there's usually multiple

paths up the mountain that you can take.

But none of the paths will work if

you're constantly trying to jump from

path to path. Because in the real world

one path might be direct and might be

steeper. Another path might have more

loops. Now, you might see the other path

and think, "Man, that one's not as

steep." But we don't see about the path

until you get on it. Is that, oh man

this one's actually going to take me way

longer to get up the mountain. And so

most of the time, we need perfect

conviction about our plan more than we

need a perfect plan. And so, think of

the paths up the mountain as your

strategy. Like the mission is getting to

the top. That's what we want to do. But

the strategy is how we're going to

prioritize our resources to getting

there. Right? And so your ability to

execute on the path, walk the path

stick to the path is ultimately the

thing that's going to predicate your

success far more than the path itself

provided it's sensible. And what I found

in my experience is that most people

actually have a pretty decent idea what

to do. I'll give you a different

analogy. So if I said, "Hey, you need to

get in shape." If you know nothing about

getting in shape, you still probably

have an idea that you should probably

stop eating crap and you should start

moving more. And if you're trying to

gain muscle, you should probably like

lift weights. And if you want to get

bigger, you should probably make those

weights or those reps go up. These are

probably things you'd be like, I kind of

already knew that. But the thing is is

that people don't do that. And so the

issue usually is like, I want to have

this perfect plan. But like, if you just

did only that for the next 3 years

you'd probably be way better off than

the vast majority of people. And so this

was a big realization that I had, which

is I had this this overanalysis of like

what is the perfect plan? And I call it

the fallacy of the perfect pick, which

is that we wait and we wait to try and

find the perfect p. The thing is is that

this is a $5 million year business

owner. So this is has nothing to do with

where you're at. This happens at all

levels, right? The mountain just gets

bigger. But it's the same concept. And

so for me, there was a period in my life

before I started making, you know, a

more money um where I had nine different

businesses. All right? And I had nine

businesses that I was CEO of and I

wasn't making any money. And we were

making revenue, but because I was so

spread thin thing, I couldn't focus on

any of them enough. And so all I could

do is just barely keep my head above

water. I had, you know, a dental agency

I had a chiropractic agency. I had my

launch business where I was flying out.

So I was in different cities every week

doing these launches. And then I also

had six locations of gyms that were

running too. So I was so spread, I was

stressed out of my mind. And so most

people can't execute. And so what I

would think at that moment in time like

now looking back it's obvious and maybe

you hearing it's obvious but for some

reason it's kind of like the Yiddish seg

where your nose is an inch above your

mouth but need somebody else to tell you

your breath breath smells bad. I think

it's the same thing with this which is

that at the time if you if I had asked

younger me what do you think the problem

is? I'd be like I think I need to change

my strategy up. I think I need to change

all these things up. When the reality is

that most times you don't need to change

that much at all. You need to actually

just do the one thing really well. And

so it's not about coming up with the

plan or doing the plan. It's sticking

with the plan, right? You can beat most

people at anything if you just stick

with it for a year. If you're willing to

suck at something for a 100 days in a

row, then you can beat most people at

most things. The bar for excellence has

never been so low. And so most of your

competition quits after the first sign

of difficulty, the first impass on the

mountain where they don't immediately

get it because they've never known what

hard feels like. And so you having to

figure something out, the unknown is the

hard part. The figuring it out is the

hard part. And so people think that, oh

I should switch paths because I

understand the path of getting to here.

So you might get this far up the

mountain and you might be on this path

and think, oh, I could do this path or

this path or this path. The thing is

usually you have to go back down and

then you got to go over and you got to

go up again, right? So it's actually a

lot longer to keep switching paths. But

we don't think that because this path we

can see. We already walk down here. We

already see the bottom of the mountain.

We can see the path to here. But then

from here, we get stuck again. And so we

keep, you know, releveling up and going

from, you know, level one to level two

level three really quickly because we've

beaten those bosses before. But then you

get to level four again and you're

stuck. And so you have to grit through

that period where you don't know what

you're doing. And this took me so long

to understand like the not knowing part

is the part that's hard and that is

where people give up. It's not usually

the the like, oh, I just need to work

harder. Sure, there's some people who

are weak and they just lose there, but

most of the times when I talk to

business owners, that's not actually

where they lose. is because they don't

know what to do and so they think, "Oh

I'll change my strategy rather than

figuring out what to do is the

strategy." And so most strategies do

work. So I want to hit on this a little

harder. One of the misconceptions about

business is that there's this one secret

thing, right? There's usually lots of

ways to win. There's a few ways to skin

a cat, right? If you have a dull knife

on the other hand, you're never going to

be able to skin the cat. And the

sharpness of your knife is your ability

to execute whatever path you have

right? Whatever way of skinning cat

which is actually pretty visceral. and

nasty like who's actually skinning cats

should probably retire that saying I

mean think about a skinned cat it's a

little tough anyways when I was talking

back to the business owner I said okay

so if execution is the issue what's the

that's the okay that's the surface level

problem you're not doing what you know

you should do the underneath of that is

why is this not happening and so I see

this as a combination of two different

things and so one is culture and the

other is talent so I'm going to explain

both in a more operationalized manner so

it's not just these buzzwords all right

so what is culture so culture is the

rules of reinforcement in a business.

Okay. So, what are the things that

govern what gets rewarded and what gets

punished? And so, if you think about

culture, there's probably a hundred or

thousand behaviors that exist within any

business or any environment, right? When

we learn a culture as a society, there

are things that we do. You hold a door.

That's one thing that you do and it gets

rewarded and if you don't do it, it gets

punished, right? If you cut somebody off

in traffic, it gets punished, right? And

so, each of these things are things that

get rewarded or punished. And that's

what creates culture. But within every

business, there's kind of a subculture

within the larger culture where you have

more and more nuance of things that are

your preferences as a business owner.

But if people are not working to your

preferences, then it means the culture

you have, the rules that govern

reinforcement are not being adequately

exercised. And the way that you

reinforce culture is

one, who you hire and who you fire. So

who you allow to exist in the business

tells more to your team about what you

think is acceptable. Number two is the

behavior that you do not allow to

change. So if someone does something

good and you don't reward it, then they

learn that they don't get rewarded for

doing that thing. On the flip side, if

someone shows up 5 minutes late to a

meeting and no one says anything, then

you teach everyone it's okay to be late.

And so the first issue with his business

was that there's probably a culture of

non-performance. And we have to get very

specific with what makes somebody not

perform. And sometimes it's only two or

three behaviors. Often times it's like

20 or 30. And you have to be able to

observe what are the things that makes

me not like my team and what would I

rather them do instead. And so I use the

format of start, stop, keep. So what I

want you to start doing that you're not

doing, what I want you to stop doing

that you are doing, and what do you need

to keep doing that I'm going to keep

reinforcing. It's a very simple way to

give feedback that I really like. Now

what about talent? Because that's the

second half. This is one is the cult is

the rules, right? The talent is the

people who are actually doing the

behaviors, doing the stuff. And so from

a talent perspective, a lot of

businesses can't expand anymore, not

because they uh don't have the model to

do it, but they don't have the ability

to execute on the plan. And the ability

to execute on the plan comes down to the

quality of the people that you have in

the business. And I can tell you this

firsthand, you probably don't have high

enough bar for who should be working for

you. And I say this for myself, too. the

moment I increase the quality of the

people who work with me, the more money

I make, right? And so what's really

interesting is that I think that this is

one of the greatest arbitrage

opportunities that exists in business to

this day still, which is that the 50%

mark for a role is $75,000 a year. Now

for you to pay 90th percentile, it might

be $115,000 per year. Right now, you

might be like, "Wow, that's a big

difference." But here's the thing is

that this person is probably like five

times more effective than this one, but

they only cost 30% more. That's a great

deal. That's a good investment. And so

at this point, all I really try and do

is just find rain makers. I want people

who are exceptional, who are obsessed

with this task. Now, how do you

differentiate the people who are good

versus not? I'll give you a tactic

around this. So, when you're

interviewing, I like to know what

someone's doing in their off time. And

if what they do in their off time is not

what I want them to do in their

full-time, then they're not going to be

full-time, right? They're going to be

always moonlighting to their other

thing. And so, I'd rather say like, what

are you obsessed with? And I like asking

that question. What are what are your

extracurricular activities? Now, if

they're like, "Honestly, all I do, let's

say I'm hiring a videographer. They're

like,"All I do is video stuff. Like

this is what I'm really passionate

about. This is what I spend my time

watching on YouTube is like, "How do I

improve the lighting? How do I improve

the audio? How do I improve the sets?

Like, this is the stuff that I like

really obsessed about." I probably know

that that person's going to do a pretty

good job because also, if I tell them

"Hey, you need to improve this stuff."

They're like, "Great. I love this

feedback. I want to get better." Now, if

somebody's like, "Oh, I love, you know

uh, pickle ball and using, you know, and

working out." There's nothing wrong with

that. It's just that is that the thing

that you're obsessed with? And so asking

that question in a couple ways in an

interview will tease out whether someone

is spending their discretionary, effort

and time on the talent or the skill that

they need to win in their role in the

business. And so that's on the pick

side, right? The third element of this

uh, here we go, is training. So if you

have rules that govern reinforcement in

the business, okay, this is what we

like, this is what we don't like, and

then you get really good people in, you

still can have people who have potential

versus actual. And so obviously the

higher up in the business, the more

you're hiring for actual, the less

you're hiring for potential. The lower

someone is in the business, the more

you're hiring for potential and less for

actual. And so when we're picking

somebody, it's like I'll pick somebody

who's just generally intelligent and has

work ethic over somebody who might be

more experienced in the career but

doesn't demonstrate the same level of

intelligence because I think the smart

person will be able to catch up to that

dumber person really quickly and then

pass them. And so what does training

look like? And so training in the

business in order to execute, I'm going

to be really clear here. The reason that

your plan isn't working is because no

one's doing the plan. So why aren't they

doing the plan? These are the reasons

right? And so from a training

perspective, it typically comes down to

observing the details. I'm going to give

you a story about this. So I was meeting

with a different business which is a

solar sales company that was doing, you

know, multiple figures, which is great

goodiz business. And the founder was

telling me that they were struggling to

develop a sales leadership within the

business. And he said they did an

off-site and they came up with like

their six pillars of sales leadership.

And it was like accountability, time

management, blah blah blah blah, right?

They had like six things. I don't

remember where they were. And he said

after the two-day, you know, two-day

event where everyone came together and

agreed on those principles, they went

back and no one changed their behavior.

And I said, "Okay, well, what does

accountability mean in terms of

behavior? What is like, show me what

someone who's holding someone

accountable does? How would I know that

accountability had occurred?" Right? And

so what happens there's he was like wait

so I need to be like oh you need to text

your team every morning and you have to

do end of week reports with every person

review and you need to at the end of the

day give kudos to the people who did

well and then ask the people who didn't

do well what they were struggling with

and then drill them on how to improve

that skill. He's like oh I was like

right say that. Don't say

accountability. No one knows what it

means. We have to translate these big

words into smaller actions that we want

someone to make. And then it's very easy

to say, "Hey, you didn't do these four

things rather than," you didn't hold

someone accountable because they're

like "I don't know. I thought I was

holding him accountable." Because we

both have different definitions for the

same thing. And if this sounds more

nuanced, guess what? Welcome to

business. Right? These are skills that

you just need to develop at some point

because changing strategy forever over

and over again is never going to get you

up the mountain. All you're going to do

is keep going down from this one over to

this one and then maybe you get to here

and then you change over and then you go

over to here. And so each time you're

wasting all of the extra effort keeping

switching paths rather than saying, "Oh

the issue I have is talent, which means

I need to recruit better. Oh, the issue

is culture, which means that I have to

show my leaders how to punish and reward

behavior in the business. Oh, we're

getting people in, but they're not being

productive. So, we need to improve our

training rather than just say, "Oh

everyone sucks." Right? And so a lot of

success comes to sticking with something

long enough to make the number of

mistakes required to actually figure it

out. Otherwise, you just keep starting

from zero every single month. And you

can beat 99% of people without being

smarter or luckier, but by being willing

to endure pain and uncertainty for

longer. That's the path up the mountain.

Hey guys, real quick. If you want to

have a blueprint of how to get up the

mountain, um this is the free 100

million scaling road map, the zillion

dollar scaling road map. Um, this is

something that was actually an internal

tool that we made for ourselves so we

could better identify at every level of

scaling what a company would probably

have to work on in order to get to the

next level. And then we just decided to

make it free. And so if you want this

you go to

acquisition.com/roadmap and you can

enter business information and grab it.

And if you like my team to give you

personalized tactics that on the next

page, you can book a call. We'll get to

know you, get to know the business, and

ultimately invite you out if it makes

sense. And at that point, we'd actually

meet with you in person and say, "Hey

these are the things that we think are

going to be the unlocks for your

business right now. These are the things

that can help pay down the uncertainty

on the path you're already on." So, hey

just look around the edge, you know

just here's a drill bit so you can get

through the rock, right? Rather than

say, "Oh, we have to reinvent the

business." Because most time we just

need to do what we're doing a little

better, a little different. And by doing

that, it unlocks the path of the

mountain so you can see it. So, click

the link and uh maybe I'll see you here

in