Expert Ownership Podcast
The Four Cornerstones of Successful Entrepreneurship
Ever dreamt of becoming a successful entrepreneur? Get ready to unlock the four keys to entrepreneurial triumph through this value-packed episode of the Expert Ownership Podcast. We're going to dive into the essence of a growth mindset, leaning on our personal experiences of building businesses.
We'll also connect the dots between owning your business, maintaining a healthy marriage, and nurturing relationships – and show how these are intertwined with entrepreneurial success.
Enjoy.
Ever dreamt of becoming a successful entrepreneur? Get ready to unlock the four keys to entrepreneurial triumph through this value-packed episode of the Expert Ownership Podcast. We're going to dive into the essence of a growth mindset, leaning on our personal experiences of building businesses.
We'll also connect the dots between owning your business, maintaining a healthy marriage, and nurturing relationships – and show how these are intertwined with entrepreneurial success.
Enjoy.
Hey, welcome back to the expert ownership podcast, jason and David. Here I'm, jason. I'm gonna try to tell David, don't say anything for the rest of the podcast. Well, I have to say something because we're both on AirPods. We're not in front of our typical microphones. I know we're on AirPods. Is it AirPods or AirPods? I don't know. It's AirPods, I think. Oh, I don't know what it is. We're traveling. We're actually in Toledo, ohio.
Speaker 1:I'm in a hotel room right now looking over the Toledo Mudhens uh Minor League Park and apparently that's the minor league team that that has more fans than just about any other minor league team in the nation. Okay, but Jason, what has that got to do? What are we talking about today? Let's get to the point here. But that's important. Are you kidding me? Nobody cares about that. I think they all do so.
Speaker 1:Today we're talking about the four keys to entrepreneurial success. Okay, okay, that's more like it. I actually saw these four keys online and I just grabbed them and I'm like you know what? I like them. I just wanted to throw them out there. And I want to talk about these things because if you live in America, in this free country where we have opportunities for advancement, and you exhibit these four qualities, then you can crush it in business. By the way, you may have grabbed them offline, but everything derives. If it's good, it comes from God. It says all good things out from the Lord. You can pull these things out of scripture and in me, even I guarantee we're just going to riff Jason's going to leave this. I'm going to give some color. There's plenty of scripture that's going to back up this kind of stuff, right? So let me just go ahead and dive right in. So the four keys to entrepreneurial success Number one the ability to learn. And the ability and desire to learn. Okay, the ability and desire to learn, Like it's a growth mindset.
Speaker 1:I remember when I was playing Pro Ball. Now that I'm looking over here at the stadium, this has a context. I remember playing Pro Ball and our bus typically didn't leave from the hotel if we were on the road until about three or four o'clock, and when we were home, obviously we didn't have a bus, we didn't have to be at the field till four o'clock, so we had all that time from the time you woke up until 4 pm to do with whatever you want, right? Obviously we didn't have our nights, and so I just remember thinking well, shoot, you know all these. This was right when, right after Nintendo came out and Sega Genesis was a big thing, so the guys used to travel with their actual Sega Genesis and plug it into the TVs in the hotel rooms you are so old, really funny man because we didn't have cell phones and all that stuff. Well, we did have Walkman, remember the Walkman, and CDs had just come out, which was interesting.
Speaker 1:So anyway, I remember saying to myself man, I don't want to just sit there and play video games Like I got to get ahead in life and I've got to grow, and so I didn't realize it then I had a growth mindset. So I actually earned my master's degree in counseling during that time and you know what that really helped. It was about 20 years before it really did, but you know, about three years ago my wife and I started our marriage coaching business for entrepreneurs and I use my degree all the time. Now, when did I get that? I got that during those three years of pro ball when everybody else was playing video games. But I decided to take that time to grow and move forward. So if you've got an ability and a desire to learn like a hunger and a thirst to learn and a growth mindset, then you're an entrepreneur who is ultimately going to have success. Yeah, that's right. I remember so I didn't get my master's while I was in pro ball, but I did read Rich Dad, poor Dad. It was a sissy, yeah. Well no, I read Rich Dad, poor Dad. I read the Millionaire Next Door. I never played a video game. I didn't do any of that stuff and that all came back to us whenever we started building and growing businesses.
Speaker 1:But you know, I'm sitting here thinking about this in Ezra, chapter seven Check this out. I think this is awesome. How a growth mindset in terms of studying, learning, like advancing yourself. I mean, even Jesus knew the scriptures and the disciples. These were men that knew the scripture. They knew the word. Listen to what it says in Ezra, chapter seven.
Speaker 1:Ezra was a priest and back in the Babylonian captivity when he came back during Nehemiah's time to help set up the temple, listen to this. In Ezra, chapter nine it said this nine and 10. From the first day of the first month he began to go up from Babylon and on the first day of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem, for the good hand of his God was on him for Ezra. Now listen, do you want God's hand on you? It said. The good hand of God was on him. Why? Look at verse 10 of Ezra seven, for Ezra had set his heart to study the law of God, to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Ezra. Do you see that? Learn, do teach. That's the pattern. The hand of God was on Ezra because Ezra had dedicated himself to a growth mindset, to learning, to consuming the content that he needed to consume, which was the scripture, the law of his God, so that he could not only teach it. But in the middle he said so he could do it.
Speaker 1:And I love that because that is a great goal for entrepreneurs. You need to be a learner, but not just so that you can make money, not just so that you can build a business, but so that at some point you can hand that business off, at some point, that you can teach other people how to do that business right. That's right. That's what you want to do. So that's number one the ability and desire to learn. Number two a strong sense of urgency. A strong sense of urgency. This is very important.
Speaker 1:I remember when David and I were building our company back to 20 years ago and we started out with just a tiny little system because we had read the book, the email on how most businesses fail in the first five years because of a lack of systems and a lack of an entrepreneurial mindset, and so I really went voraciously. I kind of took the lead on building the system, while David focused in on marketing and sales and valuations and so. But I remember building out this system. It was a simple Word document for each of our properties because we were selling real estate. So I had a Word document with all this information on about a particular property and then it was hyperlinked from an Excel spreadsheet that had a list of all of our banks along with the address of the property. So I'd go to the address property, click this little hyperlink and then it would open up that Word document for the particular property. We hosted that on a server so that any of us who were in the office could have access to it. Well then I discovered a really cool online way to do all of that stuff. So we moved that system over into an online database and it took me probably 10 years to fully perfect that system.
Speaker 1:But I remember waking up in the middle of the night on lots of nights with ideas for that system, and so I would wake up and I would jump on my computer and I would start doing all sorts of stuff and I just had this overwhelming sense of urgency If we get this right, it's going to be good. If we get this right, it's going to be good. And you know what? I'm going to get this seven years in. So it took me probably 10 years to perfect it. But seven years in, we had 100 offices in 35 different states, and so then you know, it took me another three years to continue to perfect it. But that's what happens. With a strong sense of urgency, I was like we've got to do this thing, it's got to happen, it's got to happen now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, even from a Christian perspective, I think about any time I hear a sense of urgency. I think about young David, the shepherd boy, going to the battle lines and when he hears Goliath, it automatically peaks his spiritual like wait, hold on a second. Like there's a spiritual urgency that hits. And he's like who is this man, this uncircumcised Philistine that would defy the people of God, the armies of the living God. And then he, he like, asks around what's to be done for the man that's going to take this dude out. All of a sudden he gets this urgency in his spirit. And then his big brother, eliab, is like what are you doing down here, don't you know there's evil in your heart? You just came down here to see the battle.
Speaker 1:And then David responds with something I think that is so important.
Speaker 1:He said is there not a cause Like that's the King James version, that's the original. I love the way he says. He says is there not a cause? In other words, is there not a cause, is there not some urgency here, to where I should leave the sheep and fight this man? Is there not a cause to where you, eliab, the older brother, should be fighting him? Is there not a cause that Saul should not be sitting in his tent but should actually be fighting the life? You know that spiritual urgency and I really sense right now there's a spiritual urgency in our nation, especially for Christian business owners that we need to be self-sustaining and self-sufficient. We need to be the salt and the light in the marketplace, because big business has sold its soul to do the works of Satan. We're looking at Target. We're looking at all the stuff that American Airlines and Starbucks and PayPal and everybody's pushing. Well, we have to be salt and light. Is there not a cause? Is there not a cause for us to be phenomenally excellent at our service and then, at the same time, to use it for Kingdom Impact? There is a time, and the time is now. So I love this whole sense of urgency.
Speaker 1:Yes, your sense of urgency should totally be tied to the vision that you have, that you want to accomplish your vision, your mission, your what and your why. What do we want to accomplish? Why do we want to accomplish it? Let that be a sense of urgency for you Now. You have to keep that at bay. Remember that could cause you to work 100 hours a week when you've got three small kids in the house. That's not going to be a. No, listen, you need to feel a sense of urgency for being with your kids and being a fully present dad or a fully present mom, for sure. But when the kids are asleep and you've already got your time with your spouse, then when you do have that time to dive into work, there really needs to be that sense of urgency, and when you have that you can get more done in an hour than you could in eight hours without urgency. That's right. You need that sense of urgency. Number three you need strong communication skills. You need strong communication skills.
Speaker 1:The worst thing in communication is the illusion that it's taken place. I forget who said that. I used it in one of my books. But the worst thing about communication is the illusion that it's taken place when you think that you're communicating but you're not, because what happens is and I got this from John Gordon in the absence of communication, negativity fills the void. That's right. So we have to learn as an entrepreneur. If you want to be successful as an entrepreneur, you got to know how to communicate. I think one of the Now go ahead, jason.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, I was going to say the best thing that's ever helped me in communication is emotional intelligence. We need to do a whole podcast on emotional intelligence, but the four quadrants of emotional intelligence are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. When you are self-aware, you know the emotions that are going on inside of you. You are you are self-controlled, which means you know how to manage your own emotions. Then you're socially aware, which means you're paying attention to other people and how they're feeling, then you can manage that relationship. And how do you manage the relationship? You do it through communication. You learn how to talk to people, you learn what their cues are, you know, you learn what certain things that you can say and what you can't say. You really get into other people's worlds.
Speaker 1:You know, for David and I, when we were building our business back in, you know, 2006, 7, 8, 9, 10, and we were flying all over the country going into these clients and meeting with them, we would literally walk around the room and and there's all these cubicles with just a ton of people who are working at the bank, david and I would stop in, we'd ask them their name, we'd get to know who their kids are and we remembered their names and we were writing stuff down and taking notes. But because we really cared about the people and when you care about somebody and the best type of communication you can ever have is looking at one of your clients or reaching out to one of your clients and saying, hey, how's your son doing on the game? You know, hey, how's your daughter doing? I know she broke her arm you don't have to say like that type of communication shows you really care and you do really care because you're a believer. You recognize that those people are the most important thing and then when you put people first, profit then will chase you down. That's right and the key with communication. There's a lot of keys, but one of the most important keys is you always value relationship over the transaction. And that will come out, because if people think that you value the transaction more than the relationship, your communication is going to be like a noisy symbol and a loud gong. Like the scripture says, if you speak with tongues and prophecies and all this stuff that you don't have love, it's just gross. It's a noisy gong, it's a clanging symbol. So you really, as a business owner and in the marketplace, you've got to value relationship over the transaction. In other words, you can get what you want, but you don't want to lose the heart, but you don't want to lose the heart at the same time.
Speaker 1:One of the best ways to be a good communicator is to be a good listener. This is something I've had to learn. Good gracious, I don't like to listen. I just wait my turn to talk again, and so one of the simple tricks when you're listening, to listen is you've got to just simply say what I hear you saying is. You need to be able to say that what I hear you saying is, because when you say what I hear you saying, you're going to say what you think that they're saying, and then they'll probably say, well, actually, no, I mean this. And then you're like, ah, got it. Do you realize? That little exchange right there makes them feel like you truly have listened and you got it. And when you get it, you actually have a social alignment. And that social alignment you know like somebody leaves a meeting and you say how the meeting going to like it went great. What they're really saying is we've got alignment, they heard me, they listened, and that's communication. So you have to be able to say, well, what I hear you saying is, and Then they can correct me, say, got it. Or, if you don't got it, well, I think you're saying. And then, lastly, you can also use the words.
Speaker 1:I get this from Gabe Lyons. I really like how he communicates with think media. He says help me understand If you really think something should be different in business. If you're communicating with one of your employees or whoever it may be, you can and you're wondering like, why did you arrive at this conclusion? Like, why did you choose to do this service? Or you know? However, whatever it may be, it's help me understand. So you're putting them first. You're saying, hey, help me understand your thought process, instead of coming down on them Like I can't believe you just did that because blah, blah, blah. But it's like stop, don't communicate. It's too early to communicate. You need to actually listen first. Hey, help me understand. And then move forward.
Speaker 1:So the four keys to entrepreneurial success key number one you need a, the ability to, the ability and desire to learn. Point number two a sense of urgency, a strong sense of urgency. Point number Three you need good communication skills. And point number four you need the ability to lead and delegate. Both of those go hand in hand, but you need the ability to lead. David and I always talking, you probably have heard us say this ad nauseam leadership is the ability to create an appetite in another person, and the best way to create an appetite in another person is to live the life you want them to have. So, as leaders, as entrepreneurs, we need to know how to lead people, and the best way to do that is to live the life that you want people to have.
Speaker 1:Right in Proverbs 22, 26, train up a child in the way he should go and in the end he will not depart from it. The Hebrew phrase for train up means to touch the palette of, and the Hebrew moms, when they had their babies, they, after they would nurse them, they begin to wean them and put them on food. What they would do is they would take fruits, vegetables or whatever and they would chew it up real fine. Then they would take a piece of that food out of their mouth and they would touch the palette of the baby with that food. They take a piece of that food, they put it on their finger and they touch the palette of their baby with that food and that would create an appetite in the baby For that food. So when Solomon is writing this psalm and he says, train up a child in the way he should go, which means touch the palette of you, your people like, create an appetite in them, and the best way to do that is to live the life that you want them to have.
Speaker 1:That ability to lead to me is the number one quality of an entrepreneur and that's why I believe I truly believe that Kingdom-minded entrepreneurs, biblical thinking entrepreneurs, are the answer to the cultural ills that are happening today. Absolutely, we are the church. The gates of hell will not prevail against the church. So we, as the church in the workplace, we have got to be the ones to be the salt and the light, thinking about leadership and the ability to succeed through others. That was the, that's the beauty of Christ. He set up his kingdom by succeeding through others. He literally left at his height, 33 years old, and he just rose from the grave. He's like living and alive, having conquered death. He could have paraded himself Around the city and done all of that, but he chose to succeed through others. That is great leadership. That's true discipleship.
Speaker 1:John Maxwell said the greatest leaders hand off the baton at top speed. Like. Are you discipling? Are you replicating yourself in that next generation? What is it look like for you in terms of your succession plan or even in your own role in your job that you've got as the entrepreneur? I'm sure you probably have some daily tasks and recurring obligations that you've got to do every single week or month. Who do you have coming behind you? Like you, because what the goal is? To eventually get better people in place than even you, and what you then do is you lead outside of all the daily tasks, and so you want to succeed through others, and that's one of the ways that you can get out of the business and start working on the business instead of being just simply trapped in it.
Speaker 1:That does remind me of the three most powerful questions that a leader can ask in terms of his daily tasks. If you, if you find yourself getting inundated with daily tasks, but you know your leader, you know you've got the responsibility to lead. What you need to ask yourself with every task that you do what can I automate, what can I delegate and what can I eliminate? Automate, delegate, eliminate. Ask yourself that question. Go through every single one of your tasks. If you're having a hard time with it, bring some of your Other core leaders are maybe even your spouse in and have them go through that with you automate, delegate, eliminate. But a leader knows how to lead and those are delegates. So those are the four keys to entrepreneurial success the ability to learn, the ability and desire to learn, a strong sense of urgency, great communication skills and the ability to lead and delegate. If you do that and you live in America, the land of the free, in the home of the brave, you can succeed as a entrepreneur.
Speaker 1:As an entrepreneur, yeah. So you got up. I'm not a good. Hey, we need to do on it or not. You got one off the top of your head because I think I might have one. Yeah, owner laying on it.
Speaker 1:On clouds, those shoes, yeah, I mean, I like the way they look, but I don't like walking around the block with Lori. So, yeah, I'll own it. I'll own a pair. I can say I would loan it, except for the one, the one model they have called the cloud Nova. So, thank me, later go to on cloud, cloud Nova, those the coolest walking running shoes that there are. Are they comfortable on that? Did you try? Yeah, I've got some on. Right now I'm sitting looking at a cloud. Okay, now we're wasting people's time. Listen, this was a quick one. Thank you, guys for putting up with the fact we did not have our podcast microphones, but we did have our Ear slash AirPods not sure which one, but subscribe rate review. Send us out to some friends. Hopefully this will be a blessing to them and you know, until we get to see you again, own that business, own that marriage, own those kiddos of relationships, and let's just be expert owners. God bless you guys. Yeah, see.