Part 1: The Billionaire Code

Jeremy Bergeron: Hey, everybody. This is Jeremy Bergeron, checking in from Alex Charfen's team. You know, as the business strategist on our team, I get the privilege of connecting with literally every kind of entrepreneur on the planet. I mean, every vertical, every industry, every single one, and it's amazing.

One of the things we do with entrepreneurs is we help them along what we call The Billionaire Code, right? This is a matrix of basically nine levels that every entrepreneur goes through from startup to $100 million.

This episode, Alex starts to talk about what does this path to entrepreneurial success really look like? What are the things you should already have completed? What are the things you should have in place? And also, what should you focus on, right? What are some of the issues that may come up as you progress along The Billionaire Code? I think you're absolutely going to love this introduction.

Alex Charfen: 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, 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.

We're going to get started in just a minute or two, and I'm really excited to share this with you. Let me detail what we're going to go through today. So we're going to go through a matrix that we use in our company, called The Billionaire Code, and what The Billionaire Code is, is it's the nine levels that you go through from startup to getting to $100 million as an entrepreneur.

This information, this content, has a long history in our company. It actually started with the Entrepreneurial Personality Type book, with this book, and the way that it started was, in this book we have this section called the life of questions, the fundamental life of questions, and it's the nine questions that an entrepreneurial personality type asks throughout their lives, and I'm going to share those with you today.

What's up, Dustin and Daniel? Thanks for being here. Oh, man, Copenhagen, Denmark. This is a trip. I don't think ever done a webinar with this many international people before. Thanks for being here, everybody. I have no idea what time it is where you live, but I know that it's probably ... and for some of those, it seems like it might be a little interesting what time you were calling him from. So 8:00 PM. Lars, thanks for staying up for us, man.

So here's what The Billion Code evolved into. It went from these nine questions, the nine foundational questions that we ask throughout our lives, and it evolved into a matrix that now we use for just about everything. We use it in coaching, we use it when we're selling, we use it in company analysis. Whenever I'm talking to somebody who is ... who we're going to potentially work with, or I want to understand their business better, I literally pull The Billionaire Code matrix up. I have it open on my computer, and I can follow along and understand when their ... that person is.

Because here's what The Billionaire Code will show you. It will show you where you are in the path to entrepreneurial success today. It'll show you what you should have already completed, and gotten in place, and have structure and process around, and it'll also show you what you're going to be doing next. And here's one of the biggest issues in entrepreneurship today. It may be the biggest issue. It may be the biggest issue in having a business be successful.

You know, when you're running a business, one of the hardest things to understand is what should you focus on at any given time. What should your focus be right now, what should your focus be tomorrow, and what should you be doing to get maximum momentum in your business? How many of you have a feeling like you could be doing more, you could be achieving more, you could be selling more, making more happen, but you just don't know where to put the focus? So today we're going to go through The Billionaire Code to show you exactly where to focus.

Thanks, I think that's Michael. Or Michelle. Thanks, Michelle. I appreciate you answering, and Sheila, same. Carol. Awesome. Well, here's what happens, is focus is a big problem for all of us because most people who are building a business are doing it for the first time, and so we're doing it by intuition. We're doing it by hope and a prayer. Kevin says, "I most certainly have had that experience. It's like I do step one efficiently and you have to ... you have to have step three done." Exactly.

You know, and Kevin, you just brought up such a good point. Here's what happens to us in business. You can execute a project perfectly. You can do something in your business and do it effectively, get it done, make it ... even get it done in a really good way, and here's the issue. You can get to the place where even though you've done the right project, or sorry, even though you've done well on the project, even though you executed it the way you should, you look up and nothing in the business changes.

You do something that's supposed to create momentum for you, and instead, you really get nothing out of it. Or you get some momentum but not that much. Or a little bit of moving forward. Yeah, Michelle, you've felt it, right? And here's why. When you see The Billionaire Code, here's what I want you to understand. It just is. These are the nine levels that you go through. There's not a lot of variation to it. You might be able to get a little further in some cases, given the revenue level and not have to fill everything in. But most every business in the world, it goes through these levels.

Every entrepreneur in the world goes through these levels. Some do it at a crazy accelerated pace. Some go fast in the beginning, slow down, then speed up again. Some go really slow for a long time and then hit a hockey stick, but everyone goes through these levels, and what it will help you do is create momentum over, and over, and over again. Because here's the issue for people like us, if we're not creating momentum, we feel completely constrained and held in place, and that's what I want to cover on today's webinar.

I get a little excited and tingly every time I get to share one of our presentations. At Charfen, we believe entrepreneurs are the only source of positive human evolution, and we always will be. You know, when you look at your life today, everything around you, when you look at the computer you're using to watch this, the device or ... that you're watching this on, you look at the chair you're sitting in, the desk you're at, the home that you're in, everything around us was created by an entrepreneur.

We force the world to evolve. We force the world to get better. We ask, every single day, how can we make this a better place? This word, when I put it up here, you can see it on my shirt, it's a word we talk about a lot in our company, momentum. It's the feeling of forward progress. It's the feeling of making things happen. It's the feeling of going out and crushing it, and you all know what this feels like.

When I go out and I speak to large audiences, I ask, "Does everyone know what it feels like to be in momentum?" And you know what entrepreneurs say? Right away, "Absolutely." And when I ask, "What does it feel like?" I get words like, "It's euphoric. It's incredible. It's unbelievable. It feels like nothing in the world. It feels like you're chemically boosted." And then, eventually, somebody says, "It feels like you're alive."

I want to make a point, that I think for people like you and I, being in momentum is when we feel like we are alive. So you and every person like us owes it to ourselves to figure out how to get into and stay in momentum permanently. Because the second stage of momentum, and we all know what this is, is facing resistance. Facing resistance is when you are trying to move forward, trying to create something, trying to make something happen, and it feels like the whole world is standing in your way.

It can be as simple as, like, you're going to record a podcast. I face resistance all the time. I go to record a podcast. You get pushed against the resistance there. But here's what happens. For people like us, when we're facing massive resistance, all we need to be able to see is a tiny light at the end of the tunnel, and as long as we can see that light ... A lot of the times, the people in our lives will be saying, "Hey, it's a train," but the reality is, is if we can see the light and we can move towards it, we will compel it towards us, and we will step through that light, and that is where we create our lives. People like you and I are driven by momentum, and when we face resistance, we make even more.

Now, here's the one challenging place for people like us. It's when we are in constraint, when we are held in place, when we can't see light at the end of the tunnel, when we can't move forward. You know what happens then? Here's what happens. We experience physical issues. When we can't see the light at the end of the tunnel, you know what this feels like, when you've been in full constraint, how fast was it before your body started to break down? How fast was it before you started to break down? How fast was it before you were exhausted, tired, didn't feel like you wanted to do anything anymore?

I know, for me, it's almost immediate. When I'm in full constraint, cognitively, I get blocked. I have trouble making decisions, I have trouble getting things done, I have trouble remembering things. I actually forget stuff way more often when I'm in constraint, when I'm feeling that constraint. In fact, if I'm starting to forget stuff, often I'll back up and say, "Hey, am I in a place where I'm feeling too much pressure and noise, too much constraint?"

And the third thing that happens ... First, lack of momentum effects us physically. When we're in constraint, we break down. Then, cognitively, we have trouble thinking. Then, chemically. Every one of us knows the chemical pressure of not being able to create momentum. Every one of us knows that chemical feeling of not being able to move forward, of being held in place. Literally, we chemically break down. We feel the chemical effects that are called depression, and frustration, and anxiety, and all ... All of those things are from a person like you and I being held in place, not being able to create momentum.

Now, let's flip this around. The reason this is so important is I want you to understand that forward progress is where we live. That's why we created the book, The Billionaire Code, to give you clarity so you can move forward over and over again and you don't get stuck. Now, when you're in momentum, when you're moving forward, when you're making things happen, you're actually physically boosted. How many of you know that feeling of having more stamina, actually being able to get more done? It's not like it's in your head. It actually is in the real world.

Secondly, when we're in momentum, when we have that feeling of making things happen, the world's following in our wake, we feel fully alive. Cognitively, we're more engaged, we're more aware, we're actually cognitively enhanced. And here's the big one, when we're in momentum, we are chemically boosted, chemically enhanced, chemically more aware. So when you combine all of those things, we want to get into momentum and stay in momentum because people like you and I are physiologically sensitive, momentum-based beings who are highly reactive to constraint. We are sensitive to the feeling of forward progress, that feeling of momentum.

How many of you know that if you're not making things happen, you're not right in the world, and if you can't create forward progress, it's like a panic situation that you have to? We are driven on a daily basis to make things happen, and to move the world forward, and to make a contribution. Here's what I believe about every entrepreneur I've ever worked with. They have a desire for affluence, for influence, to make money, to be successful, to create a business, but the driving factor in all of those things is the desire to make a difference, to make a contribution, to actually help the people around us. That's who we are.

Here's what I know about entrepreneurs, especially the 40 or 50 of you who showed up today to spend this time with me, your desire for contribution over time goes up. And here's what I know. After a while, it's pretty much all you can hear, is you need to give more, be more, leave more behind and make things happen here. But here's the issue, for almost every entrepreneur out there today, their desire to make a contribution and the current infrastructure they have around them, the business, the team, the people, the process, the systems, all of those things, are they fall short. They're not even close to where the ... the contribution you want to make.

How many of you would agree that your desire for contribution is way higher than the actual contribution you can make with your infrastructure today? That's why we're doing this webinar for you, because I want to help you shrink this contribution gap and get it completely ... you'll never eliminate it completely. I want you to get it shrunk completely. I want you to get it down to where you barely perceive it, where you don't feel it anymore.

There's always going to be a delta there, because you're always building, always creating, always making something new, but I want to get it to the point where it doesn't feel like every day you're just not showing up how you want to, you're not having the impact you want to, you're not having the effect you want to. Jeremy Bergeron: Well, thanks for listening to this week's episode. Stay tuned for the second part of Alex's talk on The Billionaire Code matrix and what that means for entrepreneurs as they go through each level. If you'd like some support, if you want to learn how we're helping entrepreneurs at every level of The Billionaire Code grow and scale their businesses, head over to this website, it's billionairecode.com/apply-now. That's billionairecode.com/apply-now.