The REAL job of the entrepreneur...and the SECRET to finding talent.🕺🏻 Ep 96

In a deep dive into entrepreneurship, the host discusses the evolving role of the entrepreneur, emphasizing the importance of maintaining the highest standards and breaking limiting beliefs to foster growth. The host, drawing on personal experiences and insights from successful entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, stresses that entrepreneurs must first believe in the impossible to inspire their teams to do the same. Through stories of rapid scaling and problem-solving, such as the tech entrepreneur who consolidated databases against the odds and Brandon Pool's expedited hiring process, the host illustrates the power of challenging conventional wisdom. The key takeaway is that entrepreneurs should identify and empower individuals with the highest standards, those who question the status quo and relentlessly pursue excellence, to lead departments and drive the company forward.

• Speaker A discusses immersion in entrepreneur books and the history of entrepreneurship.
• Focus on defining the entrepreneur's role as they grow their business.
• Emphasizes the importance of learning and delegating to enable growth.

"What is going on, everybody? I've got a short little tidbit for you today, and it comes from, I've been diving super deep into entrepreneur books and kind of, like, history of entrepreneurship, like some of these huge startups and kind of studying those entrepreneur CEOs, you know, and now billionaires."

This quote sets the stage for the conversation, indicating Speaker A's recent deep dive into entrepreneurship literature and his reflections on the role of the entrepreneur.

"And so I call this the real job of the entrepreneur and the secret to finding talent."

Speaker A introduces the core topic of the discussion, which is the dual concept of defining the entrepreneur's job and uncovering the secret to finding talent.

• Learning and acquiring new skills quickly is essential for entrepreneurs.
• Delegating these skills to others allows the entrepreneur to focus on the next required skill.
• The aim is to hire people who have more expertise in specific roles than the entrepreneur.

"And so for us as entrepreneurs, a lot of times the secret to growth is how quickly can we learn and acquire a new skill before giving it to someone else, right, before we teach someone else how to do that thing so that we can move on to the next skill that we need to have."

Speaker A explains that an entrepreneur's growth often depends on their ability to quickly learn and then delegate skills to others, which is a fundamental strategy for scaling a business.

"And there does reach a point where, and this is just, I'm telling you from our experience, and this is not necessarily for gyms, but hopefully you still find it valuable, is that there gets to a point where you want to bring people in who are better than you at the thing that you need, right."

This quote highlights a pivotal moment in a business's growth where the entrepreneur recognizes the need to hire individuals with greater expertise in certain areas than themselves.

• Entrepreneurs must redefine their role as their business grows.
• The entrepreneur's job evolves into maintaining higher standards and being the standard-bearer.
• Entrepreneurs are responsible for challenging beliefs about what is possible for their team.

"Because this is something that I've been trying to define for myself, which is like, okay, if we bring in Josh Giles for marketing, he is as good, and he will probably become much better than I am. And so what does my role shift into?"

Speaker A reflects on the personal challenge of redefining his role as an entrepreneur when hiring individuals who may surpass his own skills in certain areas.

"I think that the simplest way to say it is that for us, the entrepreneur, our role is to maintain higher standards than anyone else. So our role, our job is to maintain the highest standards out of anyone else. We are the ones who need to hold the bar."

Speaker A distills the entrepreneur's role to its essence, which is to uphold the highest standards within the organization and to act as the standard-bearer.

• Entrepreneurs must break down their team's limiting beliefs regarding what is achievable.
• Speaker A provides an anecdote about an entrepreneur who challenged his engineering team to merge four databases within 60 days.
• The entrepreneur in the story exemplifies setting high standards and pushing for solutions despite initial resistance.

"And so an example would be, so I was talking to an entrepreneur. So we went to dinner with entrepreneurs that I met on a plane on the way home from Laguna, and he was sitting right next to me, and he was like, oh, I own a tech company, and blah, blah, blah. And he's in Austin here. And so we had dinner last night, and an example of that was he has a whole bunch of engineers that build out his software and whatnot. And they had four different databases, and they were like, it's impossible for us to merge them, right?"

Speaker A recounts a story of another entrepreneur who faced a technical challenge within his company and the initial belief of his engineering team that a task was impossible.

"And he was like, okay, we need to do it in the next 60 days. And all of his engineers said no, not all of them, but most of them said no. And so he actually, on the spot, let go of the two or three people who were the biggest naysayers, and then he looked at the rest of his team and was like, here's your two month severance."

This quote describes a decisive moment where the entrepreneur in the story sets a high standard and a tight deadline, and takes drastic action against those who resist the challenge, demonstrating the entrepreneur's role in pushing the team beyond perceived limitations.

"And so they again said, it's really not possible. And so, one by one, he was trying to break down. What does that do? Because he's not a tech guy. He's like, okay, what does that wire do? What does this wire do? What does this wire do?"

Speaker A continues the anecdote, showing how the entrepreneur systematically addressed the problem by questioning each part of the process, thus exemplifying the role of an entrepreneur in driving the team to find solutions.

• Belief in the possibility of achieving seemingly impossible tasks is crucial for success.
• The anecdote shared demonstrates that with belief, a significant consolidation task was completed in 30 days.
• The power of belief is exemplified by high-achieving entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, who challenge the notion of impossibility.

"And it was because he believed that it was possible."

This quote emphasizes the importance of belief in accomplishing tasks that initially seem unachievable. It underlines the mindset required for success.

"And so he was able to actually get the entire thing done. The databases, all four of them, consolidated into one within 30 days."

This quote provides a specific example of a challenging task being completed efficiently due to the power of belief, illustrating the potential of what can be accomplished with the right mindset.

• Elon Musk's approach to seemingly impossible tasks is to break them down to their physical principles.
• By doing so, he often finds that limitations are based on beliefs rather than actual impossibilities.
• Entrepreneurs should adopt this mindset to overcome limiting beliefs and innovate.

"He says, break it down to physics. That's what he's asked the breeds, like, break it down to physics. And it means, like, physically, why is it impossible?"

This quote explains Elon Musk's method of questioning impossibility by reducing a problem to its fundamental physical laws, which often reveals that a task is possible.

"It's just a limiting belief."

This quote succinctly captures the essence of what often hinders progress: a belief in limitations rather than the actual constraints of reality.

• Entrepreneurs need to be pioneers in believing in and pursuing the impossible.
• They should constantly challenge the status quo by asking ambitious questions and questioning limitations.
• This mindset involves setting and maintaining higher standards than others.

"And so, as entrepreneurs, a lot of what we have to do is we really have to be the first to believe in the impossible, right?"

This quote underscores the role of entrepreneurs as the first to believe in and chase after what others consider impossible, highlighting their role as innovators and leaders.

"We have to think like, okay, how could I give every single customer a personalized video every single morning, right?"

By using a hypothetical ambitious goal, this quote illustrates the kind of innovative thinking entrepreneurs should engage in to push boundaries and create new standards.

• The highest standards of excellence should be the benchmark for leadership roles within a company.
• Entrepreneurs should identify and promote individuals who demonstrate higher standards than their superiors.
• Having leaders with the highest standards ensures the growth and quality of the company.

"The person who's highest up in a department or division should be the person who has the highest standards."

This quote establishes the principle that leadership should correlate with the level of standards one maintains, suggesting that the best leaders are those who aim for the highest excellence.

"And so me, as the entrepreneur, should identify that and say, like, okay, you should be the one holding the mantle, right?"

The speaker emphasizes the entrepreneur's responsibility to recognize and elevate individuals who show exceptional standards and potential for leadership.

• Entrepreneurs must be adept at identifying individuals with high standards to delegate responsibilities as the company grows.
• It's crucial to find people who are perfectionists and consistently seek improvement.
• The growth of an organization depends on finding the right people to maintain the entrepreneur's standard of excellence.

"Because it is big, because the organization grows beyond me being able to handle every customer service."

This quote reflects the need for scalability in business and the necessity of delegating to capable individuals as a company expands.

"I need someone who's going to have as high of a standard of excellence, as I do."

The entrepreneur acknowledges the importance of having team members whose standards of excellence match or exceed their own to ensure the quality and success of the business.

• Speaker C offers a video version of the podcast with additional visual aids.
• Video content can enhance understanding by engaging different cognitive processes.
• The YouTube channel is free to access for those who prefer visual learning.

If you ever want to have the video version of this, which usually has more effects, more visuals, more graphs, drawn out stuff, sometimes it can help hit the brain centers in different ways.

The quote explains that the video version of the podcast contains more visual elements which can cater to different learning styles and potentially improve comprehension.

• Speaker A emphasizes the importance of maintaining high expectations as a leader.
• Leaders must challenge and change the beliefs of their team to inspire possibility and achievement.
• Asking "why not" questions encourages thinking beyond perceived limitations.

That's our job. And then to break the beliefs of those who are underneath us in the organization, who are following us, to make them believe that it's possible, right.

This quote highlights a leader's role in transforming their team's mindset to foster a culture of possibility and high achievement.

• Brandon Pool's company, Lady Boss, experienced rapid growth, quadrupling their business size.
• The growth necessitated the quick hiring of 30 support reps in 14 days.
• This scenario challenged conventional hiring beliefs and showcased the power of belief in achieving rapid results.

And so what had to happen is that he had to hire 30 support reps in 14 days.

The quote illustrates an example where extraordinary business growth required an unconventional and rapid response in hiring practices, demonstrating the potential to surpass typical expectations.

• Entrepreneurs often face the challenge of achieving goals swiftly.
• Speaker A discusses the importance of speed and the need to challenge the belief that certain things can't happen quickly.
• The example of Cheryl Sandberg's rapid team expansion at Facebook is used to illustrate the possibilities.

How quickly can something happen? Right? Some people believe that it can't happen that fast. Why break it down to physics? Why can't we?

This quote emphasizes the necessity for entrepreneurs to question and overcome preconceived notions about the speed at which business objectives can be accomplished.

• Speaker A talks about striving for product excellence and the novel approach of conducting beta tests.
• Beta testing is used to measure real outcomes and ensure product quality before full release.
• The iterative process of testing and improvement is crucial to achieving high standards.

And so an example of that would be, if we're coming out with the concept of us doing beta tests for anything is completely novel.

The quote suggests that using beta tests as a genuine tool for product improvement is an innovative practice in their industry, emphasizing the commitment to product excellence.

• The significance of maintaining high standards in a company's products, services, and customer service.
• The importance of questioning the status quo and conventional wisdom to achieve exceptional results.
• The role of belief in overcoming perceived limitations and achieving goals more rapidly.

"And so it's like having those beliefs, at the end of the day, is the real job of us as entrepreneurs is like, how high of a standard can I maintain for my company and our products and our delivery? And how amazing can our customer service be?"

This quote emphasizes the entrepreneur's job to uphold and continually raise the standards of their company's offerings and customer service.

"It's not possible given the belief set that you have right now, given your experience that you have behind you. But that experience that you have behind you has in no way any impact on what is possible, right?"

The speaker challenges the idea that past experiences should limit future possibilities, suggesting that beliefs and mindsets play a crucial role in what can be achieved.

• Encouraging employees to believe in the impossible to advance within the company.
• The power of asking the right questions to accelerate goal achievement and challenge conventional timelines.
• The link between unconventional thinking and achieving better than average results.

"If you want to move up in gym launch, you have to believe in the impossible more so than anyone else does."

This quote underscores the importance of belief in the impossible as a prerequisite for career advancement within the speaker's company.

"Why can't we do it in two months? Like, break it down to physics. Why can't we do it in two months? What would need to happen for us to achieve that in eight weeks?"

By questioning the conventional timelines for achieving goals, the speaker encourages a reevaluation of what is considered possible and how to expedite success.

• The challenge of maintaining quality during rapid company scaling.
• The necessity of finding team members who have even stronger convictions in customer service and quality than the leaders themselves.
• The importance of a team that continuously seeks improvement and questions limitations.

"And so, anyways, I hope that you found this valuable for you in terms of growing your gyms and whatnot, and finding and identifying talent is you need someone who believes more in customer service than you do, who's stronger in that than you are, who believes that."

This quote highlights the need to identify and recruit talent that surpasses the leader in their belief in the value of customer service and quality standards.

"How high of quality should it be? And if they believe that it should be higher than you believe, then you found the right person."

The speaker suggests that a key indicator of the right employee is one who aspires to even higher quality standards than the leader.

• The shift from acquiring skills to pushing the limits of what's possible.
• Inspiring team members to share the leader's belief in challenging the impossible.
• The importance of collective belief in a shared vision for success.

"As we continue to evolve, it's no longer about skills for me, that I need to acquire. It's more about how can I continue to push the limits of what's possible and then make those who are underneath of us believe that."

This quote reflects the speaker's personal evolution from focusing on skill acquisition to expanding the boundaries of what the team believes is achievable.

"Like, how can I get them to believe what I believe?"

The speaker expresses a desire to instill their own strong beliefs in the realm of possibility into their team members.

• The speaker concludes with well-wishes and a reminder for gym owners about an upcoming event.
• A call to action for the audience to engage with the content through likes or comments.

"And for those of you who are gym lords, the Super bowl is on Friday. Be there."

This quote is a specific call to action for a subset of the audience, encouraging them to attend an upcoming event.

"If you can throw a like and maybe even drop a comment if you're feeling super generous, I appreciate it."

The speaker requests audience engagement as a form of support for the content shared.