Strategy Eliminates Boredom

Alex Charfen: I'm Alex Charfen, and this is the Momentum Podcast, made for empire builders, game-changers, trail-blazers, shot-takers, record-breakers, world-makers, and creators of all kinds, those among us who can't turn it off and don't know why anyone would want to. We challenge complacency, destroy apathy, and we are obsessed with creating momentum so we can roll over bureaucracy and make our greatest contribution. Sure, we pay attention to their rules but only so that we can bend them, break them, then rewrite them around our own will. We don't accept our destiny. We define it. We don't understand defeat because you only lose if you stop, and we don't know how. While the rest of the world strives for average and clings desperately to the status quo, we are the minority, the few who are willing to hallucinate there could be a better future. And instead of just daydreaming of what could be, we endure the vulnerability and exposure it takes to make it real. We are the evolutionary hunters, clearly the most important people in the world because entrepreneurs are the only source of consistent positive human evolution and we always will be.

Alex Charfen: Strategy eliminates boredom. I've got a question, another question on Facebook, and I'm having fun answering these because they trigger all types of responses from me, or for me, because I get these questions all the time. This one is from [Kianne 00:01:22]. He says, "How do I scratch the entrepreneurial itch while doing the 'boring' stuff that produces results?" Well, Kianne, you're scratching the entrepreneurial itch by doing the boring stuff that produces results because that is a big part of being an entrepreneur, but here's the problem. It feels boring because right now it's not strategic. Let me explain what I mean by that. Here's what I've found in my life working with entrepreneurs. We have a hard time doing the same thing over and over again for a long period time without wanting to innovate or change or making it better or trying to make it different.

Alex Charfen: As a result, when we have to do the same thing over and over again in a business ... Like for example real estate agents. It's a pretty easy business. You have to prospect for clients, get listings, sell houses, prospect for clients, get listings, sell houses. That's stuff is all boring after you've done it a bunch of times. I remember Cadey's first year as a real estate agent, she sold, I don't know, 20 or 30 properties. Her second year she sold like 70. Her third year she sold like 100. She was the top agent in her office. She was doing the same boring thing over and over and over again once every two or three days. Maybe it wasn't 100. It might have been 90 properties, but it was a lot. Here's why Cadey was able to do that over and over again and she never felt like it was boring. It's because we made it strategic.

Alex Charfen: Now, here's the challenge for an entrepreneur, for every one of you, whether you feel it right now or not. If you're doing the same thing over and over again every day and you don't understand how it fits into a higher level strategic plan, you don't have a clear picture of exactly how it leads to bigger results, you will sabotage that thing that you're doing. I'll give you a really easy example from me. This podcast. I love doing this podcast. I have fun with it. I get tons of great feedback on it, but if I didn't understand how strategic this podcast was, I would start fighting it on a daily basis. If I didn't know that this was a massive part of the strategic plan for my company, this would just be another recording answering another question and in another ... recording by myself here in my office, and after a while, I mean, you just stand here recording, talking to yourself. What could be more boring?

Alex Charfen: But this is why this "boring" activity isn't boring to me. Before I record a podcast, I actually sit down I think about the four to 5,000, sometimes 6,000 people that are going to listen to me. How strategic is that? Before I record a podcast, every single morning when I'm doing my planning I review my company's strategic document and I look at the fact that the podcast is driving massive business our way. And I know that people listening this podcast right now are going to be influenced and motivated to call our company, join our programs, grow bigger businesses, and make a bigger effect in the world. That is not boring because I've connected this boring or routine activity to a massive strategic event, and here's what I know about entrepreneurs. We can do anything for a prolonged period of time as long as we know that it's strategic.

Alex Charfen: I've watched it my whole career. People like you and I can do the same thing over and over again, we can get better and better at it as long as it feels strategic. As long as we know that it's contributing to a higher outcome, we will keep going. As long as we know that it's going to get us where we want, we will keep going. So if you're in a place in your business where any activity you're doing over and over again feels boring, it's because you've forgotten why it's strategic. It's because you've disconnected from the reason why that activity is important. It's because you're no longer connected to how that means something more, how that creates a bigger outcome in the overall effect that you're trying to make as an entrepreneur. When you reconnect to that, when you understand that, when you make that clear to yourself, when you pay attention to that, here's what happens. Suddenly that which is boring is no longer boring anymore.

Alex Charfen: When you are connected to the fact that what you're doing is actually moving your business, your life, your clients, your movement forward, that is no longer boring anymore. And when you get excited about the fact that you're helping people make a massive change in their lives, that is not boring anymore. In fact, when I start this podcast recording, if you're a listener you know that I often get a little excited and a little riled up, and maybe even a little bit eager and earnest because I want so badly to help you, because here's what I know about this recording. This recording right now, even though I'm standing here in my office and doing it, even though I've done several today, even though I'm doing the same thing over and over again, it is massively strategic.

Alex Charfen: This podcast has been downloaded over three quarters of a million times by the end of this month, and we've had people in over 100 countries in the world listen to it, and we've made a massive effect on human beings. I've had hundreds of people reach out to me and tell me they've changed their business, they've changed their family, they've changed their lives for the better just because they've listened to this podcast. I've had people reach out and tell me that this podcast has more value to them than products that they've purchased, that they've done more to build their business, grow their family, grow their lives, do what they want, and get into momentum through listening to this than stuff that they actually gave people money for. That is incredibly motivating, and so this boring activity of standing here in a room and recording with you becomes one of the most engaging things I do every day, because I make the boring strategic through understanding what it means.

Alex Charfen: So if you're in a place where you want to scratch the entrepreneurial itch while you're doing boring stuff that produces results, here's what I hear. What you're really saying is you haven't connected what you're doing to the real strategic result you're getting, because here's what I know about entrepreneurs. We will do just about anything to get the result we want for the people we care about. We will go through just about anything to make the future that we envision the reality today, and we will expose ourselves to just about anything to make our greatest contribution. That's why entrepreneurs are the only people in the world that will quit a 40-hour a week job working for someone else so that you can work 80 hours a week working for yourself, making half as much money, just because we want to be strategic, we want to make a greater outcome, and we want to make a massive contribution in the world.

Alex Charfen: So if you feel like what you're doing is boring, I don't think you need to do someone else. I think you need to reframe the thinking around that and ask yourself, is it really boring or is it that you're not really looking at just how strategic what you're doing is? Because when people like us understand how strategic what we're doing is, when people like us look at what we're doing today and how it connects to the greater future we're creating, and when people like us understand that our activities are creating a much greater outcome, suddenly the boring things that get results aren't so boring anymore. How do you do this? Well, you've heard me say this before. When you have a clear forward planning structure as an entrepreneur or as a CEO running a team, in either case, when you know where you're going, here's what you know.

Alex Charfen: When you have a clear forward planning structure and you understand where you're going and you know the destination you will achieve, then you know that the boring stuff you're doing today is actually driving you to that conclusion. And when you hard-wire today's activity to the effect you want in the world, when you understand that what you're doing today is going to get you the massive contribution you want to make, and when you trust the strategic planning structure and execution structure you have so that you know, regardless of how boring or how frustrating or how irritating or how simple or how unimportant the task in front of you today feels, when you know that that simple, boring, and unimportant task is going to lead to much greater strategic outcomes, it's easy. Your mindset will shift. It suddenly will not be a boring task anymore, and you will drive through it and make things happen.

Alex Charfen: And if for any reason you feel bored or slowed down or stuck or plateaued or like you're running through molasses and just not making things happen, nine out of 10 times it's because you've lost the handle on the strategic reason you're doing it and the greater outcome you're driving to. So I appreciate this question, Kianne, how to scratch that entrepreneurial itch while doing the "boring" stuff that produces results. I appreciate it because so many entrepreneurs are afraid to ask. They think, "I should just be motivated. I should just keep going. I should just keep pushing. What's wrong with me? Why am I procrastinating and why am I not doing the right things?"

Alex Charfen: Well, here's the reality. If you don't connect what you're doing today to that greater outcome, you will feel constrained. We are evolutionary hunters. We are more sensitive than the rest of world. Our subconscious mind is far more active than the average person out there, and subconscious we will hold ourselves back if we don't feel like the activities that we are doing today are going to lead to that kill, that success, that victory, the win on the hunt. In fact, if we feel like the activities we are doing today are insignificant, unimportant, and aren't tied together strategic, you will sabotage yourself. You will not waste time. We are evolutionarily hard-wired to only go on hunts we believe where we will make a kill. We don't waste time as evolutionary hunters.

Alex Charfen: In fact, sometimes when we're procrastinating, it's our subconscious mind protecting us from wasting time, because we don't know the strategic outcome of what we're doing. When we resolve that, we rock it forward and that's what allows us to change the world. So the way that you focus on and crush and successfully get the boring stuff out of your way is you create a few looking strategic plan so that you understand what you're doing is going to drive you to greater results, because here's what I know about people like us. When we know with certainty we're going to make a massive outcome in the world, in the present, we can do anything, and I know you can too.

Alex Charfen: If you're ready to start growing a team around you, if you're ready to start making a greater contribution, if you want to actually build the company you've always known you should have, then I want you to join me on a webinar. It's coming up in about 15 days. Go to Charfen ... Sorry. Go to billionairecode.com/team and join me for one hour of no pitch, 100% training. I will answer every question, and there will be a ton of value in our webinar called How To Build a World Class Team Without Ever Having to Manage People. Go to billionairecode.com/team.