The New entrepreneurial golden resource...and how you are probably leaking it...✨ Ep 68

In a thought-provoking discussion, the speaker, an experienced mentor to entrepreneurs, emphasizes the paramount importance of managing attention as a key resource for success, surpassing even time. He shares insights from his billionaire friend and underscores the necessity of focus, particularly for those in leadership roles. As businesses grow, the need to declutter one's life and minimize distractions becomes critical to harness attention effectively. He argues that the traits that initiate entrepreneurial ventures aren't the same as those needed for scaling them, highlighting the transition from individual effort to empowering others. The speaker also stresses the discipline required to say no to opportunities and the significance of concentrating on a singular goal, using his own experiences and those of his mentees to illustrate the transformative power of attention management.

• Speaker A discusses mentoring entrepreneurs and observing successful individuals.
• Mentoring shifts from tactical to strategic with higher levels of success.
• Speaker A has befriended a billionaire who exemplifies effective management of a key resource.
• Attention, not time, is identified as the "golden resource" for successful entrepreneurs.

"I titled this the new entrepreneurial Golden Resource and how you're probably leaking it."

This quote introduces the central theme of the discussion, which is the identification of attention as the crucial resource that entrepreneurs need to manage effectively to achieve success.

"And what's happened as a result of that is that I obviously obsessively look at what people who are doing better than me are doing."

Speaker A emphasizes the importance of learning from those who are more successful by closely observing their habits and strategies.

• The common misconception that time is the most valuable resource is challenged.
• Attention is argued to be more valuable than time.
• Effective attention management is a trait of highly successful individuals, like billionaires.

"I would argue that attention is money, and that is the golden resource."

This quote directly challenges the traditional view that time is the most valuable resource, proposing instead that attention is the key to financial success.

• Speaker A's billionaire friend exemplifies strict management of attention with his phone's whitelist system.
• As businesses grow, the need to manage attention becomes more critical.
• The finite nature of attention necessitates reducing distractions.

"His phone doesn't ring unless you are already a contact that has been whitelisted."

This quote illustrates a practical method used by successful individuals to manage their attention by limiting interruptions from non-essential contacts.

• The traits that help entrepreneurs start a business are different from those needed to grow it.
• Growth requires changing personal traits and focusing on developing others.
• Scaling a business is about growing people, which demands attention and bandwidth.

"The things that got you here are not the things that are going to get you there."

Speaker A highlights the need for personal evolution in entrepreneurs; the skills that initiate success are not the same as those needed to sustain and grow it.

• Successful business owners maintain quiet and clean spaces, both physically and digitally.
• A tranquil environment reflects their low tolerance for unnecessary distractions.
• This clean space is a metaphor for how they manage their attention and focus.

"I look at how quiet and how clean they keep their space. And I mean that both, in a literal sense, that their surroundings, their office, their house, their homes, their cell phone, their computers, right. It's quiet."

The quote describes how successful individuals create environments that minimize distractions, which is indicative of their meticulous attention management.

• Speaker A references the high price of coaching for entrepreneurs.
• Entrepreneurs seeking coaching are often those with businesses earning between one and three million dollars annually.
• The anecdote suggests that attention management is a topic of high-value coaching sessions.

"You want $100,000 coaching. This is what happens in $100,000 coaching sessions."

This quote implies that the insights being shared by Speaker A, particularly about attention as a resource, are the kind of high-level strategies discussed in expensive coaching sessions for advanced entrepreneurs.

• Entrepreneurs often struggle to grow because they spread their attention too thinly across multiple ventures.
• Attention is a limited resource, and its misallocation can lead to stagnation or decline in business.
• Growth requires focusing attention, which often means doing less rather than more.
• Delegation and strategic decision-making about what not to do are crucial for successful growth.
• As entrepreneurs become more successful, they face increasingly better opportunities, which they must learn to decline.
• Discipline becomes more important as one's business grows, and it's about doing less of the right things rather than more in general.
• The speaker emphasizes the importance of evolving one's identity and character traits as their business grows.
• Developing skills like delegation and leadership are necessary as the business scales.
• The speaker highlights the importance of being aware of where one's attention is being paid.
• The speaker had a coach to help manage attention and learned to identify and resolve open loops, which led to business growth.

get past a certain point, right. And the reason they can't get past it is because they only have so much attention and they have it spread between four or five different cakes.

This quote illustrates the problem of attention dilution among entrepreneurs who try to manage multiple businesses simultaneously.

In order to grow, you need to do less.

This is a counterintuitive statement that suggests growth is achieved through focus and strategic inaction rather than trying to do everything.

The better you get, the better the opportunities that you have to say no to.

This quote highlights the paradox of success; as one becomes more successful, they must become more selective with the opportunities they pursue.

It's not about doing more, it's about doing less, because we innately want to do more.

This quote emphasizes the importance of restraint and discipline over the natural inclination to take on more tasks.

The character traits that I'm going to have to emphasize in a year are going to be different than the ones that I have to emphasize now.

The speaker acknowledges that personal growth and development are dynamic processes that require different traits at different stages of business growth.

The number one thing that you have to be paying attention to is where you are paying your attention.

This quote encapsulates the core message of the transcript: the critical role of attention management in entrepreneurial success.

Every day I paid attention to where my attention was. And when I did that, all of a sudden my business blew up.

The speaker shares a personal anecdote to demonstrate the powerful impact of effective attention management on business growth.

• The speaker experienced personal growth and business expansion after addressing toxic relationships and unresolved issues.
• Open loops, or unresolved matters, can consume attention and distract from business priorities.
• Managing one's attention involves not only focusing on the right business tasks but also resolving personal issues that can impede progress.

I had toxic relationships with parents, I had toxic relationships with friends or pseudo friends, things that were taking my attention past, things that I had on my mind that I knew I had not handled.

This quote reveals the speaker's recognition of how personal relationships were negatively affecting their attention and, by extension, their business.

So when you have something that you're like, I haven't resolved this, then you need to handle that and you'll get that attention back.

The speaker suggests that resolving open loops is a way to reclaim attention and direct it towards more productive uses.

• Attention is likened to marbles of various sizes representing the amount of focus given to different areas of life.
• Prioritizing one's business or primary goal may require collecting and reallocating attention from other areas.
• The reallocation of attention can make difficult tasks seem easier due to increased focus and clarity.

"You put little marbles of attention on your marriage, you put little marbles of attention on your health, you put little marbles of attention on your spirituality, and then massive marbles of attention on your business."

This quote illustrates the metaphor of attention as marbles, with different sizes indicating the level of focus on various aspects of life. It suggests that a significant portion of attention is often dedicated to one's business.

• Attention is crucial for the ability to perceive solutions and gain insights.
• Rest can help redistribute attention, making previously difficult problems appear simpler.
• Wisdom is associated with the ability to see what others cannot, which is enhanced by greater attentional capacity.

"Because attention gives you the ability to see, right. If you think about wisdom, right? Wisdom is an ability to see what other people cannot see, right."

This quote connects attention to the concept of wisdom, emphasizing that the ability to notice things that others overlook is a function of how much attention one can apply to a situation.

• Highly successful entrepreneurs tend to lead quiet lives, contrary to the Tony Stark stereotype.
• They create layers of insulation (e.g., teams of executive assistants) to protect their attention.
• Limiting access to oneself is a strategy to prevent attention fragmentation and maintain focus.

"Every single billionaire, every single high level entrepreneur is quiet, unbelievably quiet. They keep themselves completely isolated."

This quote challenges the myth of the flamboyant, accessible entrepreneur, asserting that in reality, successful entrepreneurs are very private and protective of their attention.

• When attentional resources are low, small problems can feel overwhelming.
• With abundant attention, individuals can perceive big problems as manageable and small problems as insignificant.
• Entrepreneurs need to recognize attention drains and choose to disengage from them to simplify their focus.

"But when you have lots of capacity, big problems seem small and small problems seem big."

The quote explains that the perception of the size and significance of problems is directly related to how much attentional capacity one has.

• The process of identifying a clear objective (e.g., a financial target for gym owners) can focus attention and facilitate decision-making.
• A clear goal provides a litmus test for evaluating opportunities and distractions.
• Discipline is required to maintain focus and ignore irrelevant matters.

"At our gym Lords event, one of the things that we had to do, or that I had everyone do, was simply to find the number that they needed to have in their gym, number of efts, in order to have the lifestyle that they wanted to have."

This quote highlights the importance of setting clear, quantifiable goals to direct attention and actions toward achieving desired outcomes.

• Many entrepreneurs struggle because they lack the discipline to concentrate their attention.
• Success often requires counterintuitive actions and the ability to act against one's natural inclinations.
• Entrepreneurs must learn to be different from their current selves to become who they aspire to be.

"That's why most entrepreneurs aren't successful. That's why most entrepreneurs don't grow, is because it's hard."

The quote emphasizes that the difficulty in achieving entrepreneurial success is often due to the challenge of focusing attention and the discipline required to do so.

• The speaker informally advises entrepreneurs by assessing where their attention is directed.
• Scattered attention is a common indicator of an entrepreneur's inability to grow their business.
• Concentrated attention is equated with the "horsepower" necessary for business growth.

"And the question that I always ask is, what's your attention on? Where's your attention?"

This quote reveals the speaker's primary method for evaluating an entrepreneur's potential for success, which is to understand their current focus of attention.

• Drinking alcohol in the evenings can mask unresolved issues and anxiety.
• Stopping drinking can initially amplify unresolved issues, requiring confrontation and resolution.
• Resolving these issues can diminish the desire to drink, leading to a clearer focus on personal goals.

We stopped drinking because I realized that I would drink at night on a fairly regular basis, not like I always had some issue with it. I really didn't. I mean, I drink a lot, but I just, whatever. The point is this is that I would drink in the evenings because it would help me just destress, it would help me unwind.

This quote explains the reasoning behind stopping drinking—using alcohol as a means to destress can prevent dealing with underlying issues directly.

But what that does is it masks the thing that is taking my attention that I have anxiety on. Right. And so if you need to take a drink to unwind, then it means you have things that you have not resolved.

The quote highlights the problem with using alcohol to unwind, as it can be a sign of unresolved issues that are causing anxiety and splitting attention.

And so, one by one, what happened is that when I stopped drinking, everything got really loud and so I had to face and confront the things that I had not resolved yet.

This quote describes the immediate effect of quitting drinking, which is an increased awareness of unresolved issues that demand attention.

• Focus is crucial for business growth; attention should not be split among various ventures.
• Side hustles or businesses should be eliminated to concentrate on one main goal.
• Success is possible in any single industry without the need for diversification.
• Limiting beliefs about needing multiple ventures for financial success should be challenged.

Do one thing, focus. Do one thing, focus. Saying it again.

The repetition emphasizes the importance of focusing on a single venture rather than splitting attention across multiple projects.

Having more businesses is a farce.

This quote challenges the common belief that owning multiple businesses is the key to success, suggesting that focus on one is more effective.

You can have 100 million dollar roofing business that just repairs roofs. You don't need to do general contracting and also windows and also gutters and roofs.

The speaker uses a specific industry example to illustrate that specialization and focus in one area can lead to significant financial success.

I had someone who's in the real estate space who was doing real estate coaching after her first month of being in the coaching, called me up and was like, there's just not enough real estate agents.

This quote exemplifies the limiting beliefs that can hold back business growth, as it shows a lack of awareness of market potential.

• High achievers eliminate negativity and distractions from their lives.
• They prefer a quiet, clean operating environment and quickly remove negative influences.
• Personal relationships and environments should be managed to maintain a positive focus.

If someone walks in the door and it's any negativity, those people just get up and leave. Nothing personal. I just can't have that in my life, right?

This quote demonstrates the decisive action taken by successful individuals to eliminate negativity from their environment to maintain focus.

Someone complains, someone's negative. This weather, traffic, don't worry, I'm just going to get up and go. It's nothing personal, right?

The quote further illustrates the speaker's approach to avoiding negative conversations and distractions to preserve a positive and productive mindset.

• Consolidating businesses and efforts can lead to increased attention and revenue.
• Simplifying one's focus can result in significant and rapid financial growth.
• Encouragement is given to assess and clean up distractions to reclaim attention and improve performance.

And I just had two or three calls recently where I had told people to consolidate their businesses, get rid of one, two or three businesses, and then within a matter of 30 days, two of those people had a multiple of three x on their total revenue between of what they were doing before within a 30 day period, just by getting their attention back.

This quote provides evidence of the benefits of consolidation, as the speaker's advice led to a tripling of revenue for individuals who narrowed their focus.

So look at what you can consolidate. Lots of love, everyone. I appreciate you shoot a like for someone who feels really distracted, or if you have a spouse and you're like, we should clean up our stuff, tag them so that you can clean it up and get some attention back.

The speaker concludes with a call to action for viewers to consider what they can consolidate in their lives for better focus and attention, suggesting that simplification can lead to improved outcomes.