Momentum Podcast: 42

12 Minutes That Started It All

by Alex Charfen

Episode Description

The first public venue where I shared the Entreprnerurial Personality Type content was at Joe Polish's's Genius Network. 

Joe's mastermind is famous for its 10 minute talks, this one was 12. That was a major mistake, especially at Genius and I apologized repeatedly to Joe afterwards. It must have worked because this presentation got me invited to speak at the Genius Network annual event along side Tony Robbins, Peter Diamandis and John Paul Dejoria. 

Here are the 12 minutes that launched the EPT.

Full Audio Transcript

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, and rewrite them around our own will. We don't accept our destiny; we define it.

We don't understand defeat because the only way you lose is 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 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.

Welcome to episode 42, 12 minutes that started it all. The first time I ever shared entrepreneurial personality type content was at Joe Polish's Genius Network in Arizona. We were out there for one of his small group meetings. There was about 40 people in the room, and you're allowed to submit a 10-minute topic ... Oh, sorry. A topic for a 10-minute talk that you can share with the rest of the Genius Network members.

I had submitted the entrepreneurial personality type, and I had rewritten my speech probably 15 times. See, at Genius you don't go over 10 minutes, and I ended up going 12. I felt terrible afterwards because I knew that that was the one thing you could not do in Joe's group. But the presentation I gave, which I'll play for you in just a second here, got such a dramatic response that Joe actually told me afterwards, "Hey, you're okay, man. There was a lot of meaning to what you were saying and I know you didn't do it on purpose," because I had apologized a bunch of times for going over 10 minutes.

It must've worked, because I ended up speaking at Joe's annual conference alongside some of the most intense people I've ever been on stage with. It blew me away. Tony Robbins and John Paul Dejoria and just an incredible experience of sharing the stage with people who I have followed for so many years. Being in Genius was a game changer for me. In so many ways, it confirmed the entrepreneurial personality type, because I would go there and it's a place where I feel comfortable because everybody's like me. I think maybe that's why this 12-minute talk that I gave got such a dramatic response the first time I shared it. I think that ...

Well, let me share something very candid with you. Whenever I personally want to get back in touch with the EPT, when I want to go write something, when I want to get psyched up for something, when I want to remember what this is all about, I go back and I watch this presentation because I don't know what happened this day, but it was like all of the pressure that I put on myself to give this presentation, rewriting it over and over again, putting the words on paper over and over again, ended up with everything coming together. I said everything I wanted to say that day. Unfortunately, it was two minutes too long but I think it's probably still 12 of the most powerful minutes I've ever shared on the entrepreneurial personality type. This is what I listen to to get psyched up. I hope you enjoy it.

Speaker 2:

Alex Charfen. A family business failure started Alex's professional career at eight. Awkward in the rest of the world, the rules and organization that business inherently provided made him feel at home. He has dedicated his life to answering the question, how do you make business grow? This led to the question, how do you help people grow? This led to success far greater than he should have been capable of and the discovery of a meta personality type among us. So give it up. Alex.

Alex Charfen: Now that I find myself here in front of the room here at 25K, I just feel like a requirement to speak highly about Joel because the guy who can teach speakers the charisma, the wisdom, the intelligence, the command. The first time he talked, it was like the voice of God. So, Joel, when you're up here later, for me I just want you to know I brought the notes up so I wouldn't forget to say all that stuff about you. So now let's get started. I need everyone's help to demonstrate a discovery we've made, so I just want to ask some questions. JJ, how old were you when you knew you were different from the people around you, you realized that you were different?

JJ:

Probably at six.

Alex Charfen:

Six? Yeah. How old were you, Joe?

Joe:

12.

Alex Charfen:

12. How old were you, Jason?

Jason:

About seven.

Alex Charfen:

Seven? That's the first question. The next one is, how old were you when it started to be that you were just driven to go forward, like it was no longer somebody telling you what to or an outside goal, but you just got up and had to go every day? When did that start for you, Mary Helen?

Mary Helen:

In middle school.

Alex Charfen:

Middle school. Yeah, that's young. You had parents who supported you, right? Chris, how old were you? You had to go forward, couldn't stop.

Chris:

I was five years old.

Alex Charfen:

Five years old, and it was lit up, right?

Chris:

[crosstalk 00:06:15].

Alex Charfen:

All right. Let's see here. Travis, how old were you?

Travis:

I was in my 20s.

Alex Charfen:

20s. Cool, cool. But it kicks in hard, right? And you can't turn it off. On a scale of one to 10, 10 being the highest, how many of you feel like you have that drive to move forward at like a 10? Okay, cool. Last question. When, and how old were you when you had that fire in the back of your mind that started burning that said this really quiet, "Hey, it might be about more than just you"? Then it became, "Hey, maybe you need to make a contribution," and, "Hey, you should help some other people," and, "Hey, there's more that you should do," and then, for some of us, that becomes the singular driving force of our lives. Who's there right now? Look around the room.

We call these the three gates of the entrepreneurial personality type. When you think about this, it's amazing how everyone sees us as so different. Because I've been in rooms like this my entire career, and I can tell you that I see way more alike about us than different about us. In fact, I believe we all have very similar personality characteristics.

me ask you, as an example, most entrepreneurs are high future focused, very low present focused, unless what's here matters. How many of you are like that, something we call visionaries? Look around. You'll see. A lot of entrepreneurs have very high processing speed and ability to just take in data and make connections and move it around. How many of you have that ability? You know the people around you don't, right? Because we've all been around normal people. That's why we come here, to stay away from the normal people. How many of you have drive for gained advantage, like in your life you had to get ahead? How many of you have that? Because we know that not everyone has that. There's toll collectors. Sensitivity and awareness, really high sensitivity and awareness. Now, I'm not saying you cry a lot, but you see things other people don't see. You consume data, you process data, and you can spit it back out in a way that people can understand it and most people can't understand how you do it. Who does it?

Diverse skills and abilities. There is so much different shit you do that when you share it with people they think you're lying. When you share your career, it's like this but it felt like this to you, right? How many are there? Then the innate motivation to drive forward. We are experimental or experiential learners. Psychology doesn't know this about us, but Plato and Aristotle did. They said, "He that a man does, he shall learn," because they were just like us. But normal people aren't like that. I know normal people can learn from memorization. We can't. We have to experience or experiment. How many are like that? All right.

Now, there's two meta attributes of the personality type. The first one is that we are a little bit different than the rest of the world in that, see, I don't believe that any of you feel happy or sad. I know I sound like a nutjob. Believe me, I've been a nutjob my whole life until I sold something. Then everybody called me an entrepreneur.

I know it sounds crazy to say that I don't think you feel happy or sad, but I'll be honest with you, I think those words were made up to confuse people like us because we don't recognize happy or sad. I've been around way too many entrepreneurs. The personality type is so pronounced in people who are really, really successful. When I hang out with Sylvester Stallone, when I hang out with billionaires in business, when I had a chance to hang out with Herbie Hancock, it's the same personality type. It's just different stuff that they do.

And they don't recognize happy/sad. See, I know that entrepreneurs recognize one thing. Our state is 100% dependent on whether we're moving forward or not. We are momentum-based beings. Unfortunately, the rest of the world says shit to us like, "Take some time off," or, "Calm down," or, "Hey, you need to go relax and meditate on this." All of us feel like punching the rest of the world out, right? The rest of the world says, "Where you going to be in five years?" and we're like, "Fuck off, I don't know. Because tomorrow I could change everything. I might change the world."

We are momentum-based beings. We don't recognize happy/sad. We recognize moving forward, moving backwards, and the worst place for us to be is stopped. In anywhere in our lives, stopped almost kills us. It is like a drag on us. It makes us feel dead. That feeling of being in the zone, you can access it all the time. You just have to keep moving forward.

Now, the next attribute, and, see, I think we're momentum-based. The sooner you learn it and how to create momentum and keep creating it, then there is no such thing as sad anymore. There's just going forward. When you're around entrepreneurs who look like they can do anything, it's because they've figured out how to access constant perpetual momentum. Believe me, I'm there. I get knocked out of it 10, 15 times a day. I just get back in a minute or two. It used to take three or four weeks, and sometimes a bender. Not anymore.

The other meta attribute is that we are driven compulsively throughout our entire lives by questions. I think entrepreneurs all ask the same base questions throughout their lives. I've watched it. See, we come into this world and entrepreneurs experience way more pressure and noise than the normal person. You know that. We're sensitive. We see things differently. We process way too quick. We don't really fit into the system. Let's be honest, most of you started businesses because you couldn't follow anyone else's rules.

I know the questions. The first one we ask is, how do I stop pressure and noise? This is pre-verbal. We come into this world, and it sucks for us. We say, "How do I stop pressure and noise?" Because it's a lot of pressure and noise. We never lose that question our whole lives. In fact, you see entrepreneurs constantly asking, how do I stop pressure and noise? In fact, they buy from JJ. How do I stop body pressure and noise? They buy from Jason. How do I stop financial pressure and noise? They buy from Brad. How do I automate my system so I don't have pressure and noise? That's what we do our whole lives.

The next question we ask is, what is wrong with me? And we never stop. The entire self-help business answers, "What is wrong with me?" and it continues. See, once we get through or past or around this one, we never lose it. We're still there. But usually what results after what is wrong with me is, how do I get ahead? Because if you're screwed, you can at least win. Entrepreneurs do all kinds of things to win. We isolate and read, we pull back, we become people that we're not. We're chameleons. We'll do anything to win.

Then, the question usually turns into, how do I get further ahead? We call this gained advantage, and some entrepreneurs get stuck here. Bernie Madoff never got out of it. He got kind of jacked up and right here. There's a lot of entrepreneurs whose lives end here. In fact, you went to school with them. You know them. There's more entrepreneurial personality types in rehab and in prison than in rooms like this because the artificial suppression that we suffer right now in this system today makes very few of us get past this.

But for those who do, how do I help my team get ahead? This is what changes shit for entrepreneurs because as soon as we have a team around us, that incredible group of people that we used to hate called humanity, now we start relating to because they're right next to us and they're helping us get ahead. We discover human beings' purpose as soon as they do that for us. Because prior to that, why is everybody really here?

What happens for so many entrepreneurs is this question leads to, how do we help others get ahead? Which transitions very quickly to, how do we help everyone? If you have any doubt that this phenomena exists, just line up any biography of any famous entrepreneur and you'll see the questions. Warren Buffett went from being the guy who read and isolated to make money because he couldn't get along with people to, how do I get ahead? I build a tiny company with no people in it that we can take over the entire world, to, how do I help my team and others get ahead? Read. Read about Warren Buffett. He talks about his secretary making a million dollars, and it made her better. He wanted to help more people. Now he's going to give more money away than anyone in human history. That's an entrepreneur on fire.

See, here's the deal. You can just live there. Every successful entrepreneur, at the end of their lives, has told us how to live here. They say, "We all have pressure and noise. Do everything you can in your lives to eliminate pressure and noise, and don't name that shit." ADD and bipolar and depression and all of that is just the labels that the people who memorize shit put on us because they don't want us to be creative. If we don't fucking stop it, we're going to have the next Dark Ages because that was the biggest age of entrepreneurial suppression. So don't believe it.

The next thing that they say is, "Get protection and support." Give it and get it, because what happens is when you lower pressure and noise by requesting and giving protection and support to the people around you, your strengths and abilities will start to show. I've seen people that couldn't tie their shoes become incredible entrepreneurs because they were willing to lower pressure and noise, ask for protection and support, and their skills and abilities started to show.

Here's what happens. We call this the momentum equation because as soon as you get the contribution, it never stops. The entrepreneurs that are on fire, the guys like Richard Branson that can't lose, the people who just keep going forward, Elon Musk, they're looking at contribution. The day that they said that Tesla was going to take over the entire superstructure for automotive, he gave all of it away. He doesn't care. He'll make more.

If you want to be successful for the rest of your life and feel momentum forever, here's the simple equation: Lower pressure and noise. Ask for and provide the people around you with protection and support. Build a team and you'll see your skills and abilities start to show, and then you'll be able to make a perpetual contribution for as long as you want.

Here's what's so amazing about this. It offsets. Every entrepreneur has to work with others, because the fact is there's not an entrepreneur in history who ever did anything significant alone. We call it the entrepreneur's paradigm because entrepreneurs require far more protection and support than a normal person to reach their full potential, but any request for protection and support makes us feel exposed. As soon as we understand that we reverse the math, make a contribution, protection and support is something we should and have to ask for, it's our responsibility to increase our skills and abilities and lower pressure and noise, we can make a contribution now and forever.

Our goal is to let every entrepreneur know that we can access that arc of contribution in our lifetimes because it's part of our lifecycle. The faster we all get there, the faster we all can provide each other with protection and support to lower pressure and noise, show everyone skills and abilities, and make the greatest contribution possible. Thank you. I will be forever grateful to Joe for letting me share this at Genius and for inviting me to speak at his annual conference and for all of the friends that I've met there through Genius, just incredible, amazing, over-the-top people, Robin Sharma and Steve Sims and Sally Hogshead and Draye Redfern and ... Oh man, I could go on and on and on and on. There's so many people at Genius that have become close friends of mine.

I got to mention Dave Burg. Genius is one of those groups where, once you meet people, it's just amazing what they'll do for you. Dave Burg actually let me fly out, stay in his house in Arizona, get a surgery, and then fly back home, where his wife acted as my physician. It was amazing. Genius has been an incredible contribution to my life, and I hope you enjoyed that.

I can't wait to share episode 43 with you of the Entrepreneurial Personality Type podcast. Join me tomorrow. Cadey, the kids, and I are in Boise, and I will be recording something brand new for you. I look forward to sharing it with you. If you haven't yet, if you're ready to change things in your life, if you're ready to create momentum, if you're ready to have your mind, your body, and your business aligned and create better relationships, improve the ones you have, and optimize in every way so that you can create momentum, do me a favor. Check out the presentation that I did at momentumwebclass.com, momentumwebclass.com.

You owe it to yourself to give it a little bit of time, watch the presentation, and if you relate to what I'm sharing, you'd be blown away at some of the results we're getting with people who are in the Momentum Masterclass. If you go to momentumwebclass.com, you'll see some details about it. I appreciate you checking it out.

Thank You For Listening!

I am truly grateful that you have chosen to spend your time listening to me and my podcast.

Please feel free to reach out if you have a question or feedback via our Contact Us page.

Please leave me a review on iTunes and share my podcast with your friends and family.

With gratitude,

Alex

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