Be Your Team's Biggest Fan

When it comes to entrepreneurs building teams, I try and find the biggest shortcuts to the highest levels of success, and this is absolutely one of the biggest.

I'm Alex Charfen, and this is the Momentum Podcast, made for empire builders, game changers, trailblazers, 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. 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 on the world because entrepreneurs are the only source of consistent, positive human evolution, and we always will be.

There's a statement that I post on Facebook every once in a while that says, "If you have lost trust in the person working with you, fire them. If you have lost trust in the person you're working for, quit. Neither improves with time." That is absolutely true.

When it comes to building teams, one of the biggest shortcuts that I have in helping entrepreneurs build teams is not just that you should trust your team, but let's take it one step further than that, you should be a fan of every member of your team. You should be excited about every member of your team. When your team members win, you should be excited that they're winning for them, not just for your business. Because when you have that feeling towards your team, momentum is almost assured because then you will lean in, you will help them, you will support them, you will get excited about them, and they will do the same for you.

Today, I feel like I have the privilege of leading the most effective team that I may have ever led in my entire life. In fact, with some of the recent additions we have, Melanie Khan, Hayley Hart, Karina, who's in Ireland of all places, doing all of our design. Our team today is stronger than it's ever been, and it's only getting stronger.

Here's what's so cool, when I look at every single member of my team, I'm really a huge fan of theirs. I know who they are. I understand what they want, I understand how they work. I get excited when they get, I get excited when they win, not just 'cause my company's winning, because I feel like somebody who I'm a huge fan of is winning. I feel like it's someone who I want to see do better, I want to see succeed, I want to see their careers expand, I want to see them grow, I want to see them make more money, I want to see them grow was human beings, grow in their positions.

When you feel that way as a CEO, when you go to work every day, you never feel like you're alone, you never feel like you're carrying all the water, you never feel like you're the one doing all the work. In fact, you feel like you're supporting a group of people that you really care about, and maybe even love, and have feelings about, and want to see win, and start feeling like they're your family, and start feeling like you really are their biggest fan. If you are working with someone and you don't feel that way, I want you to pause and ask yourself why you're working with them. Because if you're not a fan of a member of your team, things just aren't gonna work out.

Cadey and I have this conversation often. We have this saying, "dumb entrepreneur tricks". One of the dumb entrepreneur tricks, and we've watched our entire career, is when an entrepreneur has someone on their team that they don't like as a person, and they admit it, but they still think that they might be successful with that person. I've got news for you, if you don't like a member of your team, you're gonna have a really hard time. If you're sitting there right now thinking, "Uh-oh," because you know you don't like a member of your team, and you know that you don't really enjoy being around that person, and you know you're not a fan of theirs, then I would suggest to you that you have a tough conversation to have with yourself, and then an uncomfortable conversation to have with them. Because the longer you keep a person on your team that you don't like, the longer you're working against yourself.

Because every person on your team can be someone that you enjoy being around, that you enjoy spending time with. That when you connect with, they make you smile, they make you excited about who you are, they make you excited about who they are. If you have someone on your team where that isn't true, you're making the active decision to spend time growing your life with someone you don't really like. Where else in the world would that ever work or make sense? Nowhere. It doesn't work in business either.

If you're bending around someone that you don't really enjoy being around, if you have someone on your team that you don't really trust, or if you have someone on your team who you feel like has lost trust in you, I've got news for you, you are prolonging the inevitable. It's not going to get better. You have a change to make. You have to sit down with that person, have a transparent conversation about how you really feel, and the fact that they probably shouldn't be on your team. Because if you don't appreciate the people working with you, if you're not excited about them, you're not going to support them in the way that you can, as the CEO. You're not gonna lean in as far as you can. You're not gonna give them all of the resources, the tools and all of yourself that you need to, to build a game-changing team.

Now, if all you want to do is build a normal company where survive, and you might make a little bit of money, and you might do okay, then maybe this rule doesn't apply. But if you're in this to build a world-changing empire, if you're in this because you want to build a company that you're proud of for the rest of your life, if you're in this because there's a change in the world that you are convinced has to be made and you're the person to make it, then you have to be a huge fan of your team.

If you're ready to get the systems, the tools, the strategies and frameworks you need to build a game-changing team that you're excited about and you love going to work with every day because you achieve together and change the world together, go to billionairecode.com, answer a few questions, and you'll have an opportunity to set up a call with a member of my team. We are helping entrepreneurs around the world build teams that they love, make the change in the world that they know should be there, and build empires. Are you next? Billionairecode.com.