It Doesn't Matter If You're Better or Faster

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.

It doesn't matter if you're better or faster. That's tough for people like us, entrepreneurs, to understand, to even hear. In fact, for people like us, and if you're like me use this qualifier. If there's ever been a clear outcome in your life, something that you really wanted and a process that you understood and a scoreboard that was clear to you and mattered, you probably ended out on top. Am I close? Or close to the top, because people like you and I are driven to become better and faster and more proficient and more efficient and able to do more and be more and show up as more, but there's a problem with that, because it doesn't matter how efficient and effective and process-driven and routine-driven you become, and this is exactly what I help people do, there comes a time when the momentum that you're creating on your own will not be enough for you.

The outcome you want will exceed the capacity for you to get there by yourself. And by the way, if you're thinking to yourself, "Oh, I think I can still do it. I'm going to be the exception. I'm going to be the person who makes billions of dollars without ever having a team." If you're going to be that exception, then I've one got comment for you. You are letting your ego get in the way of your contribution, because if you can't admit you need help, that is your ego talking. And if you won't admit you need help, you will never make the contribution you are capable of making, because none of us can do this on our own. And here's the challenge. As you start to build the team, there will come a time where you start to think in this very broken way, "Oh, but I'm so much better than they are at this. I'm so much faster than he is at this. I'm so much better than she is", at whatever it is. And it doesn't matter what that thing is.

In fact, I mean, for different entrepreneurs it's been different things. I remember years ago I had Terri Lynne and Don McNaughton, realtors in one of my business development classes. And we were talking about how you have to offload, you have to build a team, you have to get the right people doing the right things and stop doing as much, because as an entrepreneur your job is to stop doing what you're doing today so you can start doing what you will have to do tomorrow. In fact, if you're doing it right, every time you'll, every once ... not every time, but every once in a while you'll have this precarious feeling of like, "I don't have enough to do." Well then you're probably doing it right. That means that you're getting what you're doing out of the way and offloading it fast enough that your company can grow.

And the challenge for so many entrepreneurs is that we start to build the team, we start to bring people in and I had Terri Lynne in my class and I asked, "What are the things that you just can't give up?" Because I was playing devil's advocate with everyone and saying, "Let's find the really, truly strategic things in each company". Like, for me at the time, I offered the example it's hard for me to find somebody else to go on the news for me. When I get called to do a spot on the news, that really does still have to be me, because it's me. It's my presence and then we all agreed. That was a strategic outcome no one else could do. Well, Terri Lynne shared, hers was accounting. And I said, "What? Okay, you're going to have to explain this to me Terri Lynne." And because here's in my mind, I just want to share with you guys how I think about these things.

Whenever an entrepreneur says to me, "I can't let go of," and then insert whatever it is, I think of how many multi-national companies have let go of that. And so when somebody says, "Accounting," I'm like, "Well, every multi-national company in the world has had to let go of accounting, then had to put processes in place. This has been around for over 100 years. This is one of the things that's been fundamentally solved. There's checks and balances you can put in place. This is something that you must offload, not something that you might hold on to. You must offload." And Terri Lynne and I had that discussion and she and her son, Donnie, they offloaded and I think their business doubled or tripled. Now I'm not saying it was because she offloaded bookkeeping, but I think it had a lot to do with offloading bookkeeping, because then it makes you think you can offload other things. And if you offload bookkeeping and accounting, what else can you look for? And then it makes that process so much easier, because any present constraint in our lives creates a future limitation.

And the present constraint of, "I have to be the bookkeeper," and I remember Terri explains to me. It was earnest. She's like, "Well, there's just so many things in there that are different that if I had to explain them to someone, it would take weeks or months. And we'd have to put together so much documentation about how we receive funds and how we pay out funds. And I just ... It would take a long time." And I said, "Well, Terri, how long have you been doing your books?" And I can't remember what she said, but I think it might have been decades. I think she might have said 23 years or something. I can't remember, but I think, I'm pretty sure it was a high number. And I said, "So, Terri, what you're saying is the cost of building this process is that you're going to do this forever." And I think that's where it sunk in. That you have to start letting go of things. It doesn't matter how much better or faster you are, you'll find somebody else who can do it.

And I'll tell you in a minute why you're so much better and faster, so that you understand how to properly offload this stuff. Now, another one, a recent client of mine, really one of the most intense clients I've ever had. And I know I say that about my clients, but you should meet them. And this one is special. Her name's Emily Hirsh and she and I have a very close relationship. The similarities between the two of us are insane. She ... We grew up in similar types of families. She had three younger brothers. I had three younger sisters. We were both the oldest. We both were entrepreneurs since we were really young, didn't really fit in. Just tone of similarities and I love working with Emily because she applies faster than just about anyone I've worked with, but then again I say that about most of my clients. Because as I say that, I'm thinking about Alex and Leila Hormozi and Brandon and [Katelyn Poland 00:07:25] and my clients all apply incredibly fast. That's why they're getting such incredible results.

So think about that as I go through this. You should apply what I'm saying as fast as you can, because for Emily, when we got together, we did a full day consulting together and when we got together one of the things she was really having trouble letting go of, she runs an agency, and what was really hard for her was stepping out of being the day to day contact for every single ads manager in her company. And here's the challenge with that. I had to explain to Emily when she was here is that that was a disservice to her clients, because that was a commitment that the company wouldn't grow and a commitment that the processes wouldn't even become better and more efficient because anything you're doing in a managerial leadership process, anything, is something that you can write down, understand, train someone else to do, have them look at the same things, and are they going to be as good or as fast as you? Maybe not at the beginning. Maybe not right now. But here's the magic that happens and it happened for Emily. The magic that happens is when you put somebody in that position, and she has an ads manager named [Yazmin 00:08:41] that is just, she's crushing it.

And then I'll share in just a minute how crazy the crushing it is, is that she now has someone who is spending a lot of her time, the majority of her time, working with the team and developing the people and seeing what they're doing. And when you're a business owner you don't have the majority of your time to do anything. So when you put somebody in a position like that and they can spend the majority of their time, they do it even better than you do. And Emily's experiencing it, like the team is now supported in a completely different way. They built out processes. They systemized Emily's absolute genius, Emily's running ads for some of the most successful people in our business. And she's running mine and crushing it. She's amazing. And I'm so excited that she's done this second tier of leadership so that her company can keep growing, so that my ads keep growing, so that what she's doing for me keeps growing.

And here's what's happened. It's gone from something that Emily didn't think she could let go ever to now I think one of her company's emerging core strengths is that their process is so strong. That they can actually scale an ads agency, where so many other people in today's market have had a really hard time doing that. So not only did the handoff go well, it's actually changed the whole complexion of the company. In fact, it just about doubled in I think it was about a month and a half. I think it was about six weeks, they doubled their revenue, which it wasn't a small company to begin with. The entrepreneurs I work with have all been to a million dollar run rate or more. And so doubling a company once it's there, that gets crazy. And the reason is when you get leverage, it doesn't matter how good or fast you are, when somebody else has the majority of their time for it, it changes everything.

And I figured that out. I'll share with you. I even had a hard time with this. When our first information product, the first foray I had into this type of world, was in 2007. I started writing a book called Mastering Short Sales for Real Estate Agents. We actually switched to a designation for the real estate industry called Certified Distressed Property Expert. And Cadey and I sold ... We built that company. We put it on the Inc 500 list. We were in the 21st fastest growing company in 2011. So we were bankrupt in 2007. We launched the CDP January 23rd and 24th of 2008. We were liquid millionaires within 12 months and we just exploded that product. But there was a reason we were able to do all that. And I'm very clear as to what it was. Because I got to that place early in that business, where I was doing exactly what Terri Lynne and Emily did. Because the CDP, I was out traveling the country and speaking and sharing it with crowds.

And I was the main salesperson and the only person delivering it. And then we hit this inflection point where there were more people who wanted the course than I could teach classes. And we were in this place where the thing that I was the one who was really good at, that I didn't want to give up speaking. Now I had to, because it was holding us back. And I met ... I already knew ... I had lunch with a man named Tony Martinez who is now one of the owners of Xtreme Realty Team in South Florida. I think they're in the Fort Lauderdale area. I can't remember what city. Coral Springs or something. And Tony came on board and joined our team as one of our speakers. And he came and he shadowed me at a couple of events and we talked about the course over and over again. He agreed to be a speaker for us and I gave him my slide deck. It was like giving away my baby. I remember agonizing over it. The day that I did it like, "Is this the right thing? Should I be doing this?"

And I did it anyway, because the pull of the market dynamic was telling us we needed to put a lot more out into the market and there was no way I was going to be able to do it by myself. And then Tony, like I said, came to an event. He practiced like crazy. I think he read the slide deck ... I know he did it thousands of times, but he was going through a two day speech. He was actually practicing the whole things. I'd never even done that. I just started speaking on it one time. I put together a slide deck and I walked into a room. I'd been a consultant for a long time. There were 62 real estate agents on January 23rd and 24th. I just started speaking and figured it out, figured it out, and figured it out. And I've been speaking for my whole career thanks to Rick [Lara 00:13:36] in school, my high school speech coach.

And Tony really put some effort in. And I remember going out and teaching the course where he had shadowed me a few times and then we were going to do the course together. So I was going to do two sections, he was going to do two sections. And I remember by the end of the first day, I was like, "Tony, I think you just ... you need to do most of the day tomorrow, because you're crushing it." And I remember just sitting in the back of the room and watching someone else teach my material and thinking, "Man, he's really good at this." And I think it took ... well, to Tony's credit, it was under six months before ... and Cadey and I are data nerds, as I've said on this podcast before. So we obsessively surveyed every class we ever had and our four out of ... I'm sorry, our five ... We had a out of five scale. And our average review for the CDP was like a 4.6. So I had gotten a 4.6. I had gotten a 4.7. we'd gotten really, really good scores when it came to speaker rating.

Tony got the first five and it wasn't a small class. It was like a 30 or 35 person class. And every single one of them gave him a five out of five. He beat me at the thing that I was really good at, at the thing that I did to build the company, at the thing that I was like the only person in the world that could do it. I had all this anxiety of giving it up and Tony Martinez kicked my butt. It was ... and I remember, I saw the score and I picked up my phone, called him, and I congratulated him. Then I'm like, "Dude, you beat me. I can't understand this. This is crazy. What are you doing?" And at the same time, I was just super proud of him, because it was ... Here's why you are so much better or faster. I was so proud of Tony, because that was my course. I put it together. I wrote every word. I knew exactly what was in it. I had done all the research. I knew how to defend all the questions. I'm obsessive.

And within six months, he took all of that obsessive work that I did and outdid me. It blew me away. But remember, he was spending the majority of his time on it. I was fitting it in. I was running into classes most of time, like having, trying to do email in the hallway and answer text messages then going into speak. And then Tony went in and just mastered it. And so it just continues to prove to me that as entrepreneurs the number of things that we really have to do and then the number of things we try to do, there's such a disparity there. And here's why. Again, I was just going to say why you're so much better or faster. You see the future. You know what's coming next. You're better or faster, because you can anticipate what's needed. You're already thinking about the next thing. For why are you better or faster? You created it, whatever it is, whatever the thing is that you're doing, like Terri Lynne. Her really obsessive bookkeeping, which by the way, kept the books straight for a small business, which is a rarity. I'd say nine out of 10 businesses that I talk to have some problem with their bookkeeping.

They've got ... They're waiting on something. They're late. They've got a missed month. They've got something. And Terri Lynne didn't, but her obsessive accounting, of course you're better at it. Of course you're faster at it. You created it over the course of like however long it took you. And if you really think about why you're better or faster, you've lived this. The person you're bringing in has just been invited to try. And so I want you to think about this when you look at your business and you think, "Oh, well I have to keep doing this," and then that little voice says, "Because you're better and faster." Because here's the fact. Any present constraint creates a future limitation. And if you're walking around saying, "I have to do this," and insert whatever it is, it better be really important long-term.

And figure out what your greatest asset to the company is. What's your greatest contribution to the company? What's the stuff that no one else can do? What's the stuff that no one else has been able to replicate? And get rid of everything else as fast as you can. That is the exact equation through which you grow your company. And disavow and dismiss any thought of, "I have to do it, because I'm better or faster." And remember, when you say that, you're letting your ego get in the way of your contribution. You're letting your ego block you from getting the help you need. You're letting your ego tell you that you're so good you don't need help. When I look at the entrepreneurs that you and I respect, the people who change the world, the people who have left that dent in the universe, when you think of Oprah Winfrey and Steve Jobs and Elon Musk and you look at the Warren Buffett and the titans of entrepreneurship, the number of things they said they actually had to do you could probably count on one hand.

And when you look at the number of things the average entrepreneur tries to do, it's usually close to everything. Consider that. Make some shifts and you will see your business explode. If you're ready to grow your business, if you want to really create focus around what you do everyday and how you're progressing forward, join my brand new web class. No slides. No BS. This is content that's going to move you forward and change your life. Go to Momentumwebclass.com. Momentumwebclass.com. This is brand new. Even if you've used the URL before, this is new information and a brand new presentation that I can't wait to share with you. By the end of this presentation you'll understand the real reason why you're not making the progress you want and no other coach is telling you. Looking forward to seeing you on Momentumwebclass.com. And I'll be live so I'll answer any questions you have.