Leader

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 too. 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 in the world, because entrepreneurs are the only source of consistent, positive human evolution, and we always will be.

Leader, the sixth level of the Billionaire Code is leader. This is a level where you go from $3 to $10 million. That elusive run up to eight figures, there's only 300,000 leader companies in the United States. Out of 29 million, only 300,000 are $3 to $10 million, and there's a reason why at each level of the Billionaire Code, the number of entrepreneurs who have piloted a company to this stage drops so much. It's because the level of behavioral change at each new level of the Billionaire Code is exponentially greater.

Whenever I meet an entrepreneur, one of the things I'm always looking for is, is this someone who's committed to changing behavior? Is this someone, for me especially to work with, is this someone who says things? Like, "I'll do what it takes," or, "You put the process in front of me, and I'll follow it, I can adapt to just about anything. This is the most important thing in the world to me, I'm willing to show up, I'm willing to make it happen."

That's what I'm always looking for, because there's this type of entrepreneur that says things like, "Oh, well I'm not gonna change that, that's just how I am." "I'm always going to talk to my team that way," or, "This just isn't something that's ever going to shift." For me, I know that, that means that entrepreneur is going to struggle and fail and get stuck and live in a world of constraint.

At each new level of the Billionaire Code you must change behavior. When you look at leader compared to operator just the level before, let me show you how dramatic the difference is. At operator you'll remember we were delegating time. At each new level of the Billionaire Code, remember how we treated time, the seeker $0 to $40,000, dabbling. Starter, $40,000 to $100,000, it's part-time. Promoter, $100,000 to $300,000, this is where most entrepreneurs go full-time.

You didn't think you could work any harder from $300,000 to a million, builder, this is where you go over time. In the last level we talked about, operator, like I said it's delegate time, and in this level it's delegate success. That is a massive shift, I'll explain it in just a second. Your primary focus goes from focusing on delivery systems, because at operator you must clean up your delivery system. Simplify your products, make sure you're delivering at 100% all the time before you start scaling, because if you have a problem, you're going to scale your problems.

Then once you get delivery systems handled, the second you transition into leader, you have to go from focusing on delivery systems, to transformational leadership. Make no mistake, at leader, $3 to $10 million is the definitive level where your ability to climb the code is fully and totally 100% dependent on your ability to lead a team. This is why my life revolves around showing entrepreneurs how to build the infrastructure, so that they can lead world changing teams.

I spent my life obsessing over successful people, and you know what I found? Was a bunch of people who lead teams, and it doesn't matter who you think about, I can show you the team they lead. We think about Einstein as being this maverick, this person who did things on his own, this person who created all these discoveries for the world standing in front of a chalkboard on his own.

When you look at the career of Einstein, even he consistently had teams of people around him as he made a greater and greater contribution. If you look at any entrepreneur who has exceeded $3 million and then broken through the eight figure barrier and continued, I assure you they have a massive team around them. You look at even a musician or an artist or someone who creates this level of revenue, I guarantee you they have massive teams of people around them.

This is the place where you must go from delivery systems to transformational leadership. At $3 to $10 million, you now need other people who are going to handle outcomes for you. That's what delegating success means, in your team at operator, you had one team. That group of people around you, well now at leader you have to make another shift from one team to leadership team with teams. Now you'll have a group of people in your team who are leaders, and then a group of people in your team who are one step removed.

That is a massive shift for most entrepreneurs, it's one of the most difficult you'll make. You have to go from your biggest need, building a team and scaling consistent delivery and operator, to scaling a team to consistently deliver in leader. They sound similar, but they are completely and totally different. In operator, it's building a team and scaling consistent delivery.

It's that small team that is going to allow you to deliver consistently, so you can go from $1 million to $3 million. Then in leader, you have to scale the team. Now you're building the team to still consistently deliver. You can't lose consistent delivery while you scale the team. To graduate from operator, the previous level, you have to build the team and train them to do what you do well. At leader this is why it's called this, you have to recruit and develop and lead a leadership team.

This change from operator to leader is massive. Like I said, at each new level of the Billionaire Code, the level of behavioral change that you will go through is exponentially greater. It is not a subtle curve, going from seeker to starter, you can do that in 20 minutes. You can sit down and say, "I'm going to be real about this, I'm going to clarify this." Actually maybe not 20 minutes, but in a few hours you can get the keystone habits, the routine ... If you started from nothing you could surpass seeker in a few hours.

In fact, if you go to momentummasterclass.com, you spend $997, Momentum Master Class is the guaranteed product that will shore up every level of seeker for you. It will show you the keystone habits you need, exactly how to understand who you want to serve. You'll identify your movement, you'll know how to start moving towards a team. You will absolutely, definitively stop pressure and noise in your life.

You will understand who you are and what your market is and where you want to go. You will understand how to get past dabbling with your time. In seeker you can do it in a few hours. Then as you move up the Billionaire Code, consistent deliverable and avatar clarity at starter from self-identity and market clarity, it takes a little bit longer. Then a promoter, a little bit longer, then at builder a little bit longer, and more behavioral change, and at operator the same thing.

At leader, this is where our behavioral change is absolute, because we now have to understand that it is no longer about us, it's about the team. Remember the fallback questions we ask at each level? In seeker, how do I stop the pressure and noise? Starter, what is wrong with me? Promoter, how do I get ahead? Builder, how do I get further ahead? Those are all about you, operator, the last level, it was how does my team get me ahead?

We shift to we, and then at leader it's definitive. We go from how does my team get me ahead? At operator, to how does my team get ahead? At leader, because your ability to help your team get ahead, your ability to coach your team, your ability to show them where you're going, and understand what you want to do along the way, and how you're doing ... What's going on, what's happening.

Your ability to communicate what's going on in the company to every member of the team, is exactly what will create your level of success. You must constantly be asking, how does my team get ahead? That means you have to shift from me at builder, where you're asking how I get further ahead? To we at operator, how does my team get me ahead? To making it about them at leader, how does my team get ahead?

Most entrepreneurs don't have the constitution to do that. Most entrepreneurs aren't willing to change the behaviors and become more consistent and show up as a CEO. As a CEO, what you say will be heard through a megaphone, and what you do will be seen through a microscope. You have to make your behavior about your team. If you show up in a bad mood, there's this thing called emotional contagion.

It will guarantee your team is in a worse mood than you are. If you show up and you're worried and nervous and overwhelmed, it will guarantee your team will immediately become worried, nervous, and overwhelmed. When a CEO tells me, "I just don't know what's going on with my team lately? They're worried, they're nervous, and overwhelmed." I talk to them briefly about their lives, and I find out that, that CEO is worried, nervous, and overwhelmed, and they're seeing that reflection in their team.

Groups of people don't just all shift at once. Teams don't just become poisoned overnight, what happens is, is over time your team will take on how you show up. If you don't watch how you show up, and make it about them, you'll find that your team shows up in a way you don't want to seem there. You'll find that your team shows up in a way that makes you uncomfortable, that makes you worried, that makes you nervous.

This is why it's circular, the more you show up present and aware and grounded, with a clear understanding of what's going on, the more your team will do the exact same thing. This is a level where you must shift from transactional management to transformational leadership, but in even more dynamic way. Remember this shift, transactional management is telling people what to do, checking that it got done, and then telling them what to do again.

It's a three step process, it will absolutely rob you of your soul, and convince you, you're a terrible management. You're not the only one who hates that, so do the people you're working with. They can't stand it either, and they want you to stop. See transformational leadership is a subtle shift, it feels huge, but it really isn't. What you do, is you give people clear outcomes. You tell them where you're going, and then you let them ask questions and understand, and then you have them agree yes, we can do that.

Then you coach their success along the way, so you check in with them, you establish feedback loops. You look at metrics and measurements, and understand what's happening. Then you get leveraged results, and when you make this shift from transactional to transformational, that is what will guarantee that you can get out of leader, and get into the eight figure world of owner and above.

Transformational leadership is the key to how you will not only go through this level, but then continue to grow your Empire, continue to grow your business, continue to grow your influence and your affluence. Transformational leadership is going to be foundational from this point forward. I drive this home, because for any entrepreneur who thinks that they're going to build a world changing organization, but they're never going to have to build a team, I've got news for you, you are delusional.

A few months ago I was in a group coaching session for a friend of mine, Jon Morrow. Jon's one of the most intense entrepreneurs I've ever met in my life. I just had lunch with him a few weeks ago, he's so awesome. John has a $1 million plus company, he has a personal-care staff of seven or eight people. He has a team of I think 13 or 14 people, he's one of the most well-known bloggers on the planet.

Jon navigates the world, and he can only move his face. He drives a wheelchair, he operates a computer, he does everything through straws and with assistance. He has grown an entire team, and there is one reason that Jon is able to do everything that he does, his ability to lead a team. I want you to think about it, he had to do it from the beginning. He's an intense individual, and I was in a session where he was getting coaching from a group of entrepreneurs here in town.

I was asked to attend, my friend David Gonzalez, who runs the Internet Marketing Party here in Austin. He runs these events, and it was awesome. I just loved watching Jon get coaching and help, and I mean he's one of the most aware and present entrepreneurs I've ever been around. Maybe not being able to move makes it so that he really has to be grounded in the present to understand what's going on.

I watched him take coaching from people in a way that very few entrepreneurs can, and with a sincerity and a gratitude and a grace that is very hard for most. It was interesting, at one point, one of the guys in the room got up and said something about how he didn't think Jon should build the team, or he didn't think Jon needed to build the team. In fact, what his goal was, was to be become the world's first self-made billionaire without ever having to build a team.

He was only going to use artificial intelligence and contractors and people that he didn't have to talk to. They could communicate with through systems, and I remember thinking, "Oh gosh, if only you understood how absolutely asinine that comment is, and how egotistical and how ridiculous you look making it," because to any entrepreneur who has climbed the code, and anyone who has watched other entrepreneurs climbed the code, and has any type of perspective, for an entrepreneur to say, "I'm going to become a self-made billionaire, and I'm going to be responsible for 100% of it myself," makes you look like a complete and total fool.

Not one person in history has ever been able to do that, and right at leader, $3 to $10 million is where you must start delegating success, or you're going to be responsible for 100% of the outcomes in your company. Unless you're going to make some world changing invention that you on your own create and license and put out and do everything with, and somehow get to $100 million, you're going to have a really hard time creating a business where you get to a $1 billion without any team in the world.

It just doesn't happen, are there exceptions? Sure, I'm sure the guy who invented the paperclip probably created $1 billion in value, but are you going to try and be that guy? The paperclip is already invented, or are you going to take the proven path to entrepreneurial success that every great entrepreneur in history has taken. That everyone you and I respect has taken, that every great leader today has taken.

I mean I can walk you through the lives of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and Elon Musk and Steve Jobs exactly when they went through seeker, and starter, and promoter, and builder, and operator, and leader, to where they started finally leading people. When that guy stood up in a room full of entrepreneurs and professed not only his goal, but his belief that he absolutely would be the first self-made billionaire who did it all himself, it was funny.

I watched the reactions of the people around the room when he said that, and I could tell who'd been around, and who was probably on their first time around. I could tell who understood how silly it was what he said, and then those who looked at it and thought, "I need to ask him how he's gonna do that, so I can do it." The fact is, that has to be one of the most egotistical things I've ever heard anyone say in my career.

This is reality, entrepreneurs learn very little standing still, and we learn almost nothing alone. Your ability to build a team is in finite relationship to your ability to be successful in your life. If you're one of those people who says, "I don't know if I can do it." If you're one of those people who says, "I can't build a team, or I won't build a team, or I'm just gonna do it all myself." I've got news for you, you are heading down a world of entrepreneurial hell, pain, anguish, constraint.

Here's what I know about you, and you can tell me I'm wrong, you can stop listening to the podcast. You can deny this, but you and I both know that it's absolutely real. That in the back of your mind there has always been that voice saying, "You can do more, you can be more, you're going to do something extraordinary. You're going to leave a mark here, you're going to make something happen, it's going to be incredible."

You know that there's a voice telling you, you are destined to create something massive here. It's always been there, so don't pretend like you're going to turn it off, because people like us can't. Instead, make the decision, because that's all it takes, and you can make a decision right now that you're going to understand what is the minimum effective dose it takes to create a system and a structure to build a team around you, so you can have the world changing organization you and I both know you have always been meant to have.

That's how you get through leader, and if your aspirations are greater than the average entrepreneur, if you want that elusive eight figure company. If you want to get to $10 million and beyond, then your ability to lead people is exactly going to be proportionate to your ability to create success, and how fast your company grows through the rest of the Billionaire Code. If you are an entrepreneur that has a business $300,000 to $1 million, or even $1 million plus, we have coaching groups for you.

I would love to be able to share them with you. If you go to billionairecode.com, billionairecode.com, and answer a few questions, one of my team will reach out and share with you how we help entrepreneurs climb the code quickly. See, what we understand is exactly how to build that forward-looking communication system, so you can trust every member of your team, understand what's going on, recruit the right people, put them in a place to succeed, and build the leadership team around you to get you to 10 figures and beyond.

The Billionaire Code, or our coaching programs have only been available since, or have been available for less than a year, and we've already helped one of our clients go from 7 to 8 figures. We're ready to do it again, so go to billionairecode.com, give us your information. One of my team members will reach out to you, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.